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EngravedbyK Mille 



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ILLUSTRATIONS 



LANDSCAPE, 
HISTORICAL, AND ANTIQUARIAN, 



THE POETICAL WORKS 



OF 



SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. 



LONDON: 



CHARLES TILT, FLEET STREET; 

CHAPMAN AND HALL, STRAND; J. CUMMING, DUBLIN; JOHN MENZIES, 

EDINBURGH ; T. WARDLE PHILADELPHIA ; RITTNER 

AND GOUPIL, PARIS ; ASHER, BERLIN. 



S3 



1 










'RINTED BY MANNING AND SMITHSON, 
12, IVY USE. 



PREFACE. 



In completion of the design originally contemplated, the 
following series of illustrations to the Poetical Works of 
Sir Walter Scott have been produced. It has been deemed 
advisable to depart in a slight degree from the plan pursued 
in the illustration of the Novels. In the present series 
have been introduced a few plates intended to convey 
some idea of the armour, furniture, and embellishments 
of the olden time ; — and the attempt has been received 
with favour ; indeed, such a result might have been fairly 
anticipated, now that so much attention is deservedly 
bestowed on the manners, customs, and edifices of our 
forefathers; and it would be doing injustice to a rising 
and meritorious artist, Mr. Nixon, not to acknowledge 
that he has displayed great taste and judgment in the 
execution of this portion of the Work. 

The editor has again, as on a former occasion, to return 
the thanks of the proprietors to James Skene, Esq., for 
the liberal manner in which he placed his numerous and 
valuable sketches at their disposal ; and it is matter of 
regret, that the necessarily limited number of illustrations 

a2 



PREFACE. 

requisite for this series, as compared with the Prose Works, 
has not enabled them to avail themselves more extensively 
of his valuable assistance. 

The editor would have preferred not alluding to the 
conduct of Mr. Turner in the progress of this Work ; but 
it seems to him, that it would be unjust, both to the 
publisher as well as to himself, not to lay the following 
statement before the reader. — When the work was first 
projected, Mr. Turner was applied to for the aid of his 
distinguished talents; the application was refused, partly 
on the plea, that he must make all the drawings (which 
was objected to by the proprietors), and partly because 
he was making the designs for Mr. Cadell's edition of 
the Poetical Works. Upon this, it was determined to 
copy on a smaller scale two or three of the plates that 
were appropriate, which Mr. Turner had made for the 
Provincial Antiquities of Scotland; which had been pur- 
chased by Mr. Tilt; — and Mr. Turner, as well as Sir 
Walter Scott, who were partners in that work, received 
their proportion of this sale. This intention was com- 
municated to Mr. Turner; the source from whence these 
subjects were derived was mentioned upon the plate; and 
when the first engraving was completed, in order to prevent 
Mr. Turner's reputation suffering any injury, the present 
writer called upon that gentleman, requesting his remarks, 
and proposed to pay him for his trouble in making them ; 
after a few minutes' consideration this was declined. 

Having thus acted with all possible courtesy to Mr. 



PREFACE. 

Turner, and with that consideration so justly due to his emi- 
nent talents, the plates were published. The steps taken by 
Mr. Turner on that occasion, are well known: of the pro- 
priety and delicacy of them, although the editor entertains 
a strong opinion, he declines adding any expression of it ; 
and concludes by stating that the plates in question, with 
one exception, were engraved by an artist whose masterly 
execution of Mr. Turner's designs, in unquestionably the 
finest work amongst the number that have appeared from 
him, is the best test of the proprietors' wish to do him 
justice. 

The Descriptions which accompany the Plates, have 
been in many cases taken from the work already alluded 
to, which was edited by Sir Walter Scott. For the admi- 
rable descriptions of Lord Marmion's Armour, James V., 
Ancient Furniture, Tomb of Rokeby, Ellen and Fitzjames, 
and De Argentine, the editor is indebted to Mr. Moule, 
whose readiness to oblige, is only equalled by his great 
knowledge of the subject he has illustrated. 

JOHN MARTIN. 

London, May, 1834. 



CONTENTS. 



PAINTER. 

Hall, at Abbotsford . . . D. Roberts 

'Thrieve Castle G. Cattermole 

Blackhouse Tower . . . C. R. Stanley 

Grey Mare's Tail . . . . J. S. Cotman 

" Hexelcleugh T. Creswick 

Rhymer's Tower . . . . S. Austin . 

Duchess of Monmouth . . Sir G. Kneller 

Branksome Tower .... Copley Fielding . 

■ Hall, at Branksome . . . J. H. Nixon . , 

Melrose . G. Barret . . . 

•Margaret ........ A. E. Chalon, R.A. 

/Roslin ........ J. M.W.Turner, R.A 

-Whitby P. Dewint . . . 

Crichtoun Castle .... J. M.W.Turner, R.A. 

Linlithgow A. W. Callcott, J1.A. 

Lord Marmion's Armour. . J. H. Nixon . . 

Braid Hills A. W. Callcott, R.A. 

'Tantallon J. M.W.Turner,R.A. 

The Lady Clare . .... T. Phillips, R.A. . 

v Benvenue G. F. Robson . . 



VOL. 


PAGE 


i. 


2 


ii. 


142 


iii. 


3 


iv. 


98 


iv. 


117 


v. 


139 


vi. 


46- 


vi. 


49 


vi. 


51 


vi. 


73 


vi. 


89 


vi. 


207 


vii. 


93 


vii. 


197 


vii. 


202 


vii. 


236 


vii. 


239 


vii. 


261 


vii. 


309 


viii. 


39 



CONTENTS. 



PAINTERS. VOL. PAGE 

Ellen Douglas and Fitzjames . J. H. Nixon . . viii. 54 

Brig of Bracklinn J. Bentley . . . viii. 82 

Dumfermline G. Cattermole . . viii. 183 

The Knight of Snowdoun . . . S. A. Hart . . . viii. 295 - 

Eggliston H. Gastineau . . ix. 81 

^ Glen of the Greta . ■ . . . G. Balmer ... ix. 85 

" Matilda Mrs. Carpenter . ix. 170 

Barnard Castle ....... Copley Fielding . ix. 207 

' Hall, Rokeby Castle S. A. Hart ... ix. 211 

Tomb of Rokeby J. H. Nixon . . ix. 290 

Alhambra , W. S. Wilkinson . ix. 398 

Iona G. Cattermole . . x. 21 

Edith W. Mulready, R.A. x. 25 

"Glencoe J. S. Cotman . . x. 136 

Goatfells of Arran W. Evans ... x. 182 

.Cumray J. D. Harding . . x. 190 

v Death-Bier of De Argentine . . J. H. Nixon . . x. 265 

s Metelill W. Boxall ... xi. 169 

v Ancient Furniture A. Pugin ... xi. 238 

Waterloo A. Cooper, R.A. . xi. 274 



HALL AT ABBOTSFORD. 

Vol. i. p. 2. 



Sir Walter Scott, in the decorations and the pleasure he 
derived from his house at Abbotsford, seems, in a consi- 
derable degree, to have resembled the accomplished owner 
of Strawberry Hill. Like the residence of that fascinating 
writer, originally the humble abode of the retired vender 
of toys, which became eventually the interesting memorial 
of its owner's taste; so Abbotsford arose, in a similar 
mode : and the humble residence which was on the estate 
when it first came into the possession of its highly gifted 
owner, was converted into the remarkable monument it 
now remains of his genius and taste. 

The plan of the house was arranged by Mr. Atkinson, 
to which the exterior design was adapted by Mr. Blore, 
modified in some of its details by the insertion of fragments 
of sculpture, and remains of ancient architecture, collected 
by the owner from buildings of interest demolished during 
the creation of his own residence ; of these, were portions 
of the Heart of Mid Lothian, which form an interesting 
though small feature of the house. 

The exterior decorations were taken principally from 
Melrose, Roslyn, and Dryburgh; for which purpose an 
ingenious plasterer was constantly kept employed forming 



HALL AT ABBOTSFORD. 

models from the ornaments of these buildings, and ap- 
plying them to the ceilings, cornices, and other parts, 
where enrichment was required, with a degree of fancy 
and feeling highly illustrative of the mind of the owner 
of this extraordinary place. 

The view here given, however, is that of the Hall only. 
From an account given by a visitor some few years ago, we 
have borrowed a few particulars of this part of the building. 
From the porchway, which is spacious and airy, open to 
the elements in front, and adorned with some enormous 
petrified stag horns, you enter by folding doors into the 
Hall. It is about forty feet long, by twenty in heighth and 
breadth: the walls are painted to resemble oak, admirably 
executed by Mr. Hay, of Edinburgh, who was much and 
deservedly employed by Sir Walter Scott, in the decora- 
tions of Abbotsford: some panelling from Dumfermline 
and other ancient Scottish buildings have been introduced 
in the walls. The roof is of the same material, and painted 
in a similar manner, and consists of a series of groined 
arches intersecting each other : in the centre is a series of 
shields richly blazoned, representing the pedigree of the 
poet. Amongst these armorial bearings are distinguished 
those of Ainslie, Kerr, Shaw, Swinton, Rutherford, Scott, 
Haliburton,* and others. Round the door- way at the 
eastern end, which is seen in the present view, are the 
armorial bearings also of several of the friends and com- 

* In 1830, Sir Walter Scott printed thirty copies of Memorials of this 
Family, for private distribution. 



HALL AT ABBOTSFORD. 

panions of this eminent man. The hall leads to the study, 
as seen in the present view ; and this study is connected with 
the library, rich in that class of books in which Sir Walter 
Scott took so much delight. At the intersections of each 
of the arches of the roof, are emblazoned the armorial 
bearings of the most renowned of the Border chieftains, 
many of whom have been celebrated in the works of Sir 
Walter Scott — Grahame, Kerrs of Cessford and Ferni- 
herst, Home, Turnbull, Rutherford, Armstrong, Bell, 
Irving, Johnston, Jardine, Halliday, and others : between 
the ribs is painted the following inscription: — 

Zfyessz be tf>e Coat 8rmoujce0 of it Qimniis ana plen of name 
qu£a feeep it tf?e &cotti0i> $Baitt)Z8 in pe tiags of attin 

^Dfjep toere ioortlne in ti?air tgme anti in ty&ii tiefens 
<&tin ti)aim UefenHgt 

The floor of the hall is black and white marble from the 
Hebrides, wrought lozenge-wise. The walls are hung 
with arms and armour: two full suits of splendid steel 
occupy niches at the eastern end, as seen in the view; the 
one an English suit of the time of Henry V., and the 
other an Italian suit of later date. The massive keys of 
the Tolbooth; the gun and spleuchan, or purse of the 
renowned Rob Roy ; the thummerkins, instruments of 
torture in use during the time of the Covenanters, form 
some of the curious reliques which are here arranged. The 
variety of cuirasses, black and white, plain and sculptured, 



HALL AT ABBOTSFORD. 

is very great; helmets, stirrups, and spurs, are in great 
profusion : there are swords of every order — from the enor- 
mous two-handed weapon, with which the Swiss peasants 
dared to withstand the Austrian chivalry, to the claymore 
of the rebellion of 1745, and the rapier of Dettingen. 
Among other trophies, are some Polish lances gathered on 
the field of Waterloo, and a complete suit of chain-mail 
from one of Tippoo's body guard of Seringapatam. A 
series of German executioners' swords, on the blades of 
which were the arms of Augsburg, and a legend which 
may be thus rendered: — 

" But when I strike to dust, from sleepless grave 
Sweet Jesu stoop, a sin stained soul to save.'' 

From the centre is suspended a chandelier of modern 
construction, but arranged to harmonize with the rest of 
the ornaments of the hall. Antique chairs and tables are 
dispersed about the room; and amongst other curiosities 
is an ancient Roman camp-kettle, purchased by Sir Walter 
at a sale, at a price which appeared very extravagant to an 
old woman who happened to be present, " What wull the 
Shirra gie next, if he gie sa muckle for an auld kail pat ?" 

It may not be irrelevant to mention, that the design for 
the monument to be erected in Edinburgh, to the memory 
of their highly-gifted countryman, has been entrusted to 
Mr. Roberts, the painter of the picture from which our 
subject has been engraved : we do not doubt that it will be 
worthy his acknowledged taste in this department. 



THRIEVE CASTLE. 

" Adieu! my Castle of the Thrieve." 

I, vol. ii.'p. 142. 



This fortress is situated in the Stewartry of Kirkcud- 
bright, upon an island several acres in extent, formed by the 
river Dee. The walls are very thick and strong, and bear 
the marks of great antiquity. It was a royal castle ; but 
the keeping of it, agreeable to the feudal practice, was 
granted by charter, or sometimes by a more temporary and 
precarious right, to different powerful families, together 
with lands for their good service in maintaining and defend- 
ing the place. This office of heritable keeper remained 
with the Nithesdale family, chief of the Maxwells, till their 
forfeiture in 1715. The garrison seems to have been vic- 
tualled upon feudal principles; for each parish in the 
Stewartry was burthened with the yearly payment of a 
larder mart cow, i. e. a cow fit for being killed and salted at 
Martinmas, for winter provisions. The right of levying 
these cattle was retained by the Nithesdale family, when 
they sold the estate in 1704, and they did not cease to 
exercise it till their attainder. 

This castle consists of a large square tower, built with a 
small slate-like stone, surrounded at a small distance by 
an envelope, with four round towers; it had also a strong 
gate ; the curtains of the envelope were primed with guns. 



THRIEVE CASTLE. 

There was, it is said, a more ancient fortress, belonging to 
the old lords or petty kings of Galloway. Tradition says 
it obtained the appellation of Thrieve's Castle, that is, 
the castle of the Rive, from one of the lords of Galloway 
of that family, who resided here ; and from his depredations 
and extortions was called the Rive ; others derive it from 
the word Reeve, as being a contraction of the Reeve's 
Castle. 

Upon the ruin of the house of Douglas, and the annex- 
ation of the lordship of Galloway to the crown of Scotland 
in 1455, this castle remained in the king's hands, who 
appointed captains for the keeping thereof, as occasion 
required. Among other persons who held the office of 
keeper, was Patrick, Earl of Bothwell, one of the chief 
insurgents who deprived James III. of his life and crown. 

During the troubles under Charles I. it was held for 
the king by the Earl of Nithesdale, who garrisoned and 
victualled it at his own expense. Thrieve was the last 
of the fortresses which held out for the house of Douglas, 
after their grand rebellion in 1553. In this castle William, 
Earl of Douglas, in the middle of the fifteenth century, 
hung the sheriff of Galloway. 



BLACKHOUSE TOWER. 

Scene of the Douglas Tragedy." 

Minstrelsy, vol. iii. p. 3, 



The farm of Blackhouse, in Selkirkshire, is said to have 
been the scene of this melancholy event. There are the 
remains of a very ancient tower, adjacent to the farm- 
house, in a wild and solitary glen, upon a torrent named 
Douglas-burn, which joins the Yarrow, after passing a 
craggy rock called the Douglas-craig. This wild scene, 
now a part of the Traquair estate, formed one of the most 
ancient possessions of the renowned family of Douglas; for 
Sir John Douglas, eldest son of William, the first Lord 
Douglas, is said to have sat, as baronial Lord of Douglas- 
burn, during his father's life-time, in a parliament of 
Malcolm Canmore, held at Forfar. 

The tower appears to have been square, with a circular 
turret at one angle, for carrying up the staircase, and for 
flanking the entrance. It is said to have derived its name 
of Blackhouse from the complexion of the Lords of Douglas, 
whose swarthy hue was a family attribute. But when the 
high mountains, by which it is enclosed, were covered with 
heather, which was the case till of late years, Blackhouse 
must also have merited its appellation from the appearance 
of the scenery. 

Hume, of Godscroft, the historian of the house of 
Douglas, says, " The Lord of Liddesdale being at his 
pastime, hunting in Attrick Forrest, is beset by William 
Earle of Douglas, and such as hee had ordained for that 
purpose, and there assailed, wounded, and slain, beside 
Galsewood, in the year 1353; upon a jealousie that the 



BLACKHOUSE TOWER. 

earle had conceived of him with his lady, as the report 
goeth, for so sayes the old song: 

" The Countesse of Douglas, out of her Boure she came, 
And loudly there that she did call ; 
It is for the Lord of Liddesdale, 
That I let these teares downe fall." 

This Lord Douglas is styled by the historian, " the 
flowre of ehivalrie," who deeply regrets that he had not 
been free from so foul a blot. Chalmers,* however, attri- 
butes the murder of the knight of Liddesdale to a different 
motive than jealousy; he says, " The chief of the Doug- 
lasses ordered William, the knight of Liddesdale, to be 
slain in 1353, as he was enjoying the sports of the chase in 
Galswood. William's Cross marks the spot where feudal 
policy perpetrated his odious purpose. The body of the 
knight, who had been often overpowered, but never con- 
quered, was carried to Linden Kirk for a night, and thence 
was conveyed to Melros Abbey, for his lasting repOse. 
That one Douglas should slay another Douglas, is such an 
act, that Godscroft, the apologist for all the deeds of all the 
Douglasses, knows not how to extenuate, or explain, with- 
out the aid of amatory fiction; while the odious passions of 
envy, interest, and ambition, were the true motives in the 
flinty heart of the principal assassin, who was too powerful 
for punishment at such a moment, when England desired 
tranquillity, and Scotland was ruled by a regency. No 
Countess of Douglas then existed." 

* Caledonia, vol. ii. 



GREY MARE'S TAIL. 

four hundred yards. There is a small island in it, where 
the eagles rear their young in great security. 

" There eagles scream from shore to shore ; 
Down all the rocks the torrents roar ; 
O'er the black waves incessant driven, 
Dark mists infest the summer heaven ; 
Through the rude barriers of the lake, 
Away its hurrying waters break, 
Faster and whiter, dash and curl, 
Till down yon dark abyss they hurl. 
Rises the fog-smoke white as snow, 
Thunders the viewless stream below." 

The Grey Mare's Tail begins to grow, is a phrase applied 
pretty generally, by the inhabitants of the north, to the 
appearance of the waters on the heights after a heavy rain. 




^v 

^ 

K 



HEXELCLEUGH. 

True Thomas lay in Huntlie bank ; 
A ferlie he spied wi' his ee, 
And there he saw a ladye bright, 
Come riding down by the Eildon tree." 

Minstrelsy, vol. iv. p. 117. 



Huntly Bank, and the adjacent scenery, form now a 
portion of the domain of Abbotsford. The interesting 
portrait of Sir Walter Scott, painted by Edwin Landseer, 
R.A., in 1833, will be fresh in the memory of our readers. 
The scenery, which the artist has there introduced, is taken 
from this spot. 

Earlstoun, the present name of the parish in which the 
Rhymer resided, is plainly a modern corruption of the 
celebrated appellation of Ersildoun, most probably derived 
from the Cambro British Arcwl-dun, signifying the Prospect 
Hill. Its corrupted name of Earlstoun is attributed, by 
popular tradition, to the supposition that the Earls of 
March had of old resided here. But though these earls do 
not seem ever to have had a residence at this place, they 
were undoubtedly the principal proprietors of Ersildoun. 
These opulent barons appear to have granted various por- 
tions of their domain of Ersildoun to several tenants in fee. 
The most remarkable of all those tenants was Thomas the 






HEXELCLEUGH. 

Rhymer, the earliest poet of Scotland, who flourished here 
during the latter half of the thirteenth century. Popular 
tradition states that he lived in a tower at the west end of 
the village, the ruins of which may be still seen by willing 
eyes. A stone, which is built into the front wall of the 
church, bears this inscription : — 

" Auld Rhymer's race 
Lies in this place," 






RHYMER'S TOWER. 

" I was at Erceldoune, 
With Tomas spak Y there ; 
Ther herd Y rede in roune, 
Who Tristrem gat and bare." 

Sir Tristrem, Fytte i, vol. v. p. 139. 



Erceldoune, as before mentioned, is a village in the 
county of Berwick, situated upon the river Leader, about 
two miles above its junction with the Tweed. It appears 
that this small village was once a place of some importance, 
and at least occasionally honoured with the royal residence. 
In a tower at the western extremity of this village, the 
ruins of which are still shewn,- after the lapse of seven 
centuries, dwelt Thomas of Erceldoune, the earliest Scot- 
tish poet, whose real name is supposed to have been 
Thomas Learmonth: he flourished in the reign of Alex- 
ander III. According to popular tradition, Thomas the 
Rhymer derived his prophetical powers from his intercourse 
with the Queen of Fairy. 

" The fairy ring-dance now round Eildon-tree 
Moves to wild strains of elfin minstrelsy : 
On glancing step appears the fairy queen ; 
The printed grass beneath, springs soft and green ; 
While hand in hand she leads the frolic round, 
The dinning tabor shakes the charmed ground ; 



RHYMER'S TOWER; 

Or graceful mounted on her palfrey gray, 

In robes that glisten like the sun in May ; 

With hawk and hound she leads the moonlight ranks 

Of knights and dames to Huntley's ferny banks, 

Where Rymour, long of yore, the nymph embraced, — 

The first of men unearthly lips to taste." 

By this rash proceeding, however, he consigned himself 
entirely to her power, and was conducted by a very 
perilous route to Fairy-land, where she instructed him in 
all the mysteries of learning, past, present, and to come; 
fraught with which, at the end of seven years, he returned 
to Erceldoune, and astonished everybody with his saga- 
city. At the end of seven years he again disappeared, and 
is supposed to have returned to Fairy-land. Tradition 
further relates, that a shepherd was once conducted into 
the interior recesses of Eildon-hill, by a venerable per- 
sonage, whom he discovered to be the famous Rhymer, 
and who shewed him an immense number of steeds in their 
caparisons, and at the bridle of each a knight sleeping, in 
sable armour, with a sword and bugle-horn at his side. 
These, he was told, were the host of King Arthur, waiting 
till the appointed return of that monarch from Fairy-land. 

The death of Alexander the Third, King of Scotland, 
is said to have been foretold by Thomas the Rhymer. The 
monarch being delayed in crossing the Forth at Queen's 
Ferry until day-light was gone, and the night being dark, 
was advised by his attendants to spend it at Inverkei thing; 
but, rejecting their counsel, he pushed on with all the 



RHYMER'S TOWER. 

speed he could, to Kinghorn; when he was near the west 
end of that town, his horse tumbling in the sand, he fell, 
and his neck being dislocated by the fall, he expired. The 
Rhymer was then residing at the Castle of Dunbar, with 
the Earl of March.* 

On the day of Alexander's death, the Earl of March 
asked whether any extraordinary event would happen next 
day? "To-morrow," answered Thomas, "will be heard 
the most vehement wind that ever was known in Scotland." 
.When the news of the king's death arrived; " That," said 
Thomas, " was the wind of which I spake." f 

* Ford. Scot. Chron. lib. 10. c. 43. f Haile's Annals. 



DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH. 

" For she had known adversity, 
Though born in such a high degree ; 
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, 
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i. vol. vi. p. 46. 



Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, was the 
widow of the unfortunate James, Duke of Monmouth, who 
was ^beheaded in 1685; she was the second daughter of 
Walter, first Earl of Buccleuch, so created in 1619, and 
afterwards extended, by a subsequent patent, to heirs 
female: his son, the second earl, died in 1651; and his 
sister Mary, who was married at the early age of eleven, to 
Walter Scott, son of Sir Gideon Scott, of Harden, died 
in two years afterwards; Anne, her sister, was married to 
the Duke of Monmouth* on the 20th of April, 1663. The 
duchess was a distinguished protectress of poetical merit, 
and evinced her, discriminating taste by early selecting 
Dry den as the object of her patronage: she is alluded to by 
this eminent poet in his poem of Absalom and Achitophel, 

* In allusion to this marriage perhaps, the motto of this eminent 
family is Amo; the war cry of the Scotts, however, is Alemoor, the usual 
place of rendezvous of the whole clan. 




"A////r ^J".e///:t. 



id // 



f 



- :" ] 



DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH, 
where, in allusion to the Duke of Monmouth's career, he 



" He made the charming Annabel his bride." 

She cultivated the friendship of the Duke of York, and 
established an intimacy between him and her husband. Sir 
Walter Scott, in a note on this poem in his edition of 
Dryden's Works, says, " Her turn of mind and her aversion 
to her husband's political intrigues, lead one to imagine, 
that Dryden sketched out her character under that of 
Marmoutiere in the 'Duke of Guise,' whose expostula- 
tions with her lover apply exactly to the situation of the 
noble pair." 

" When every hour I see you court the crowd ; 
When with the shouts of the rebellious rabble, 
I see you borne on shoulders to cabals ; 
Where, with the traitorous council of sixteen 
You sit, and plot the royal Henry's death." 

The avowed infidelity of the duke is said to have been 
resented by her in an unfeeling manner when he was 
on the point of paying the penalty of his rebellion. 
Burnet* says, "that her resentment for his course of life 
with the Lady Wentworth, wrought so much on her, that 
she seemed not to have any tenderness left that became her 
sex and his present circumstances; for though he desired 

* History of his Own Times, vol. iii. p. 50. 

D 



DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH. 

to speak privately with her, she would have witnesses to 
hear all that passed — and they parted very coldly." This 
statement of the bishop's has been contradicted, from a 
manuscript in the possession of the noble family of Buc- 
cleuch; printed in the appendix to Rose's Remarks on 
Mr. Fox's History. In the interview which took place in 
the Tower, she is stated to have said, " that if in any thing 
she had failed of the duty, zeal, and obedience that became 
her as a wife, she humbly begged the favour to disclaim it, 
and she would fall down on her knees and beg his pardon 
for it." To which moving discourse he answered, "That 
she had always shewn herself a very kind, loving, and 
dutiful wife toward him, and he had nothing imaginable to 
charge her with, either against her virtue and duty to him, 
her steady loyalty and affection to the late king, or kind- 
ness and affection towards his children." 

She survived the melancholy catastrophe of her husband's 
death many years ; and built the princely palace of Dalkeith 
about the commencement of the last century. She had 
two sons by the Duke of Monmouth ; one of whom carried 
on the line of Buccleuch, and the other was created Earl 
of Deloraine. The Duchess remarried, in 1688, Charles, 
third Baron Cornwallis. She died in 1732, at her house in 
Pall Mall, and her remains were deposited in the church of 
Dalkeith. 



BRANKSOME TOWER. 

The feast was over in Branksome Tower." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i. vol. vi. p. 49. 



This ancient seat of the noble family of Buccleuch, is thus 
described by Sir Walter Scott, in the notes to this poem. 

In the reign of James I., Sir William Scott of Buccleuch, 
chief of the clan bearing that name, exchanged with Sir 
Thomas Inglis of Manor, the estate of Murdiestone, in 
Lancashire, for one half of the Barony of Branksome lying 
upon the Teviot, about three miles above Hawick. Brank- 
some Castle continued long to be the principal seat of this 
noble family. It has since been the residence of the com- 
missioners, or chamberlains of the family. From the various 
alterations which the building has undergone, it is not only 
greatly restricted in its dimensions, but retains little of the 
castellated form, if we except one square tower of massy 
thickness, the only part of the original building which now 
remains. 

The extent of the ancient edifice can still be traced by 
some vestiges of its foundation, and its strength is obvious 
from the situation, on a steep bank surrounded by the 
Teviot, and flanked by a deep ravine, formed by a precipi- 
tous brook. It was anciently surrounded by wood, as 
appears from the survey of Roxburghshire. 



BRANKSOME TOWER. 

Branksome was also celebrated of yore for the charms of 
a bonny lass, whose beauty has become proverbial in Scot- 
land. She dwelt not, however, in the castle of Sir Walter 
Scott's Witch Lady, but in the alehouse of the adjacent 
hamlet, which was kept by her mother. A young- officer of 
some rank, of the name of Maitland, happened to be quar- 
tered in the vicinity, saw, loved, and married the bonny lass 
of Branksome. So strange was such an alliance deemed in 
those days, that the old mother, under whose auspices it 
was performed (her nick-name was Jean the Ranter) did not 
escape the imputation of witchcraft. Upon this incident, 
which happened probably about the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, was made a ballad, which is still in exist- 
ence. 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

" Nine-and- twenty knights of fame, 
Hung their shields in Branksome Hall." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i. vol. vi. p. 51. 



In the illustration of this subject,— the festive hall of the 
Lord of Branxholm in Teviotdale as it existed in the 
middle of the sixteenth century, — the painter has faithfully 
embodied the very lively colouring and accurate detail ex- 
hibited in this beautiful poem of Sir Walter Scott, who, 
" enamoured of the lofty visions of chivalry," possessed all 
the qualifications essential to his object, and gave the effect 
of reality to every scene he delineated. His minute descrip- 
tion of this antique residence of a Border chieftain, is in 
itself a most perfect picture, and not less exact than his 
masterly sketch of the customs and manners of the Scottish 
Borderers in the same poem. 

No manor house in former times was complete without 
its Hall, for which one general plan was adopted in the in- 
ternal arrangement; but although corresponding with each 
other in similarity of design, these rooms varied consider- 
ably in their minuter parts, as well as in the degree of en- 
richment bestowed upon their construction. 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

The early style of domestic architecture, embracing so 
many beautiful forms, is now regarded as a fashionable 
innovation with reference to the Greek colonnades and por- 
ticos, which, unsuitable as they were to the English climate, 
superseded the magnificent and picturesque buildings of our 
ancestors. This ancient style can now, however, only be 
adopted on the exterior ; modern ideas of convenience and 
refinement require an almost total change in the plan and 
disposition of all the principal rooms. 

The position of the hall, in the baronial mansions of 
early date, was in the very heart or centre of the building, 
dividing the lord's apartments from the domestic offices, 
under the immediate control of the steward, butler, &c; 
and the high table, as it was usually called, was uniformly 
placed at the upper end of the hall, on the haut pas, or dais, 
a part of the floor elevated by three steps at least. This 
table was always reserved for the lord and his family, with 
all their visitors of rank. 

Upon the sides of the festive hall were separate tables 
and benches for the cadets of the family, the household, and 
dependents, at which 

" Steward and squire, with needful haste, 
Marshalled the rank of every guest." 

These tables, composed of thick oaken boards laid upon 
trestles, long continued in use in all the houses upon the 
Borders, where feudal manners prevailed till the latest 
period. 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

In the very centre of this room, the largest in the man- 
sion, was the fire-hearth, placed immediately beneath a 
louvre, or open turret in the roof, by which the smoke 
escaped. Around the walls, on every side, were deeply 
sunk panels of oak, plain and substantial, corresponding 
with the massive simplicity of a Border residence, and 
without, as the old writers on these subjects express it, 
too great curious toor&0 of entail,* anti bmic mouItiitte*f So that 
it might readily be inferred, from the rudeness of the 
workmanship, that the carver and joiner employed were 
one and the same person. 

At the lower end of the dining hall, where the screen to 
the pantry and cellar doors stood, was also a gallery for the 
minstrel, a never failing attendant on every festival of the 
year. 

" There would he sing achievements high, 
And circumstance of chivalry/' 

The birth-day odes, now abolished, presented the last 
trace of the actual employment of a pensioned poet; but in 
former times, when " the minstrel's art was honoured by all 
that was distinguished in rank or in genius," like the im- 
provvisatore of modern Italy — 

* This term entail, derived from the Italian intaglio, was much used 
by our ancient artists for fine and delicate carvings. The artists of those 
days used to leave that department of their labour to be paid for accord- 
ing to the time it took in execution, and the degree of delicacy which 
their employers chose to pay for. 

f Stow's Annals, p. 481. 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

" He poured to lord and lady gay, 
The unpremeditated lay." 

The coat of arms, and favourite devices of the chieftain, 
gracefully disposed, and exhibiting the workmanship of a 
skilful herald, were almost the only ornaments of the hall ; 
excepting, perhaps, might sometimes be found, 

2Dn t|?e mils olti portraiture 

2Df fjorsemen, ijatofciS, anti f>omtti0* 

Chaucer's Dreme. 

The larger kind of hounds, such as are reposing in the 
foreground of the picture before us, were called Alaunts;* 
animals, to which the author of Qbt JHagter of tije ®ame has 
devoted a whole chapter, in a definition of their character 
and different kinds. Chaucer, in his " Knight's Tale," 
describing the great King of Thrace, drew his picture from 
an old English Baron, and says, 

afcout $t0 c$ar tfjere fcienten tofjite abating, 
&etttp ana mo, ag grete ag any gtere, 
'GLo l&untett at tfje leott, or rfje Bete, 
3na foloiuea %im toitl) mo&tl fast £ fcouna, 
CoIIareti imtf) gofa, atta terretg ftfea rouna. 



* It has been doubted, by antiquaries of sound judgment, whether the 
Alaunt was really the mastiff or the greyhound, (gazehound was its 
ancient name), which was bred originally from the wolf-dog, and was 
" wild in his aspect, erect in his ears, and shaggy in his coat;" — an old 
version of Chaucer seems to incline to the latter opinion. 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

As the chase was the honourable occupation of an age in 
which military prowess was deemed the principal, and 
indeed only object of gentlemanly emulation, every baronial 
mansion had its great hall hung round with numerous 
hunting implements, large brazen hunting horns, and boar 
spears ; these, together with targets, and the branching 
antlers of the hart, stag, or buck, formed the appropriate 
garniture of the walls.* Of the Scott family, in particular, 
it is said in an old poem, 

" Their crest, supporters, and hunting horn, 
Show their beginning from hunting came:" 

The existence of clans under separate chiefs, was not one 
of the least remarkable circumstances in the political con- 
dition of the Scottish nation, and indicates clearly the origin 
of many of their peculiar sentiments and customs. The 

" Ten brace and more of greyhounds, snowy fair, 
And tall as stags, ran loose, and cours'd around his chair, 
A match for hares in flight, in grappling for the bear ; 
With golden muzzles all their mouths were bound, j 
And collars of the same their necks surround." 

* That a buck's head was considered an appropriate ornament to a 
house, and an acceptable present, appears in the following extract from 
a letter, printed in " Lodge's Illustrations of History:" In 1594, Roger 
Manners, writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury, says, " Mr: Bucknall 
thanketh your lordship for the stagges hedd (which he is contented shal 
be placed on his hedd, whensoever he doth marry), in the mean tyme 
he wool place it, not in the stable, but upon the entry of his house, 
instede of a porter, and so he sayth it shal be a monument." — Vol. iii. 
p. 69. 



THE HALL AT BEANKSOME. 

natural division of this romantic country into straths or 
narrow secluded valleys, separated from one another by 
high mountains, and the inhabitants being seldom on good 
terms with their neighbours, gave rise as a matter of 
necessity to various communities, amongst which persons 
of superior property or talent, and successful in combat, 
naturally became, like the ancient barons of Buccleuch, 
respective chiefs of a particular clan. 

Every district, as well as Teviot-dale and Ettrick-dale, 
formerly assumed the appearance of an independent state, 
and the clans, defended by their native barriers and military 
disposition, did not always quietly submit to the authority 
of government, even under their early sovereigns, 

" While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott," 

is a line of the poet marking the insulated state of society 
which formerly prevailed. At this time, with a very limited 
admission of strangers in the valleys, intermarriages and 
consanguinity were the natural cousequences ; most of the 
members of each clan, being of the same kin, bore the 
same name with their feudal chief, and to all he stood in 
the several relations of landlord, leader, and judge. 

The assembled guests at the manor-house in the sixteenth 
century, when 

" Nine and twenty knights of fame 
Hung their shields in Branksome Hall," 

were all of one family, descended from younger brothers, or 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

united by distant relationship to Scott of Buccleuch, the 
lord of Branxholm, chief of the clan bearing the same name, 
his vassals and kinsmen. 

"The Scotts they rade, the Scotts they ran, 
Sae starkly and sa steadilie, 
And aye the ower word o' the thrang, 
Was ' Rise for Branksome readilie.' " 

In a history of Scottish surnames by William Buchanan of 
Auchmar, is mentioned a striking instance of this family 
assemblage. The author relates, that the Buchanans, 
stewards of the ancient Earls of Lennox, had a considerable 
estate in the district situated on the banks of Loch Lomond. 
The family became so numerous in its cadets, and the 
chief's seat was at the same time so centrically placed with 
regard to the respective residences of the various branches 
of it, that the Laird of Buchanan could, upon any summer's 
day, summon no less than fifty of his own name to his 
house, all of whom might conveniently return to their 
homes the same night ; the most distant seat of any of the 
clan not being above ten miles from Buchanan-Place in 
Stirlingshire, a mansion which has been considerably en- 
larged, and is now the principal residence of his Grace the 
Duke of Montrose, K.Gf. 

The paternal coat of arms of the family of Scott, of 
which the poet himself was not an unworthy member, and 
those of its more distant branches, are all heraldically 
blazoned according to the ancient Scottish practice of differ- 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

encing the arms of descendants of the same family by 
peculiar marks of cadency, (on which subject Nisbet has 
written a little treatise), or by variations of the original 
shield ; a method that is generally found to have reference 
to the particular line of ancestry claimed by the cadet, or 
junior branch of a noble stem. 

Besides the necessary distinction observed in the heraldic 
emblazonm ents of the Scotts, fanciful m ottos were used by 
each branch of a family, analogous to that of the chieftain. 
Amo, the motto borne by Scott of -Buccleuch, was seemingly 
adopted to convey a principle of unity, and was strengthened 
in the motto of another Scott, which exhibited an expression 
of eternal amity : Nescit Amor finis, ' ' Love knows no end . ' ' 
The words Amore Patrice, used by one of the cadets of the 
family, explain at once the motive which held the clan 
together. Pacem Amo, when borne by a Scott, seems to 
indicate a love of quiet hardly reconcileable with the known 
pursuits of a borderer's life. The same sentiment of amity 
is continued in the motto of another cadet, Amo Probos, 
" I love the virtuous ;" and carried on, with an affected dis- 
dain of heriditary descent, in the motto, Fortior Origine 
Virtus, imptying "a love of virtue before lineage." A sen- 
timent worthy of the heroic days of Greece. It would 
be tedious to enumerate the mottos of the numerous 
branches of the family of Scott, who all fought under the 
same standard, " in the old Border day," and which were 
chosen with a view to preserve the distinction necessary to 
be observed amongst so many members of the same clan. 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

Best riding by Moonlight, the motto of Scott of Howpasley, 
is said to have been an allusion to the crescents on their 
shield ; and the words .Tenebris Lux, a scriptural sentence, 
may have had reference in the mind of the bearer to 
" the Beacon blaze of war." There are other mottos 
which indicate the caution mingled with valour to be ob- 
served, either in the field, or when engaged in a nocturnal 
raid. Scott of Harden, the direct ancestor of the poet, 
bore Watch Weel; and another branch, Scott of Thirlestane, 
the truly chivalrous words, Ready, aye Ready ; while one, 
without doubting his own prowess, bore an inspiring text of 
promise, Me for tern reddit Deus, " God renders me brave." 
The last it will be necessary to mention, implies a merito- 
rious adherence to justice, In recto Decus, "there is honour 
in upright conduct." 

"Motto," saysNisbet, that great authority for Scottish 
heraldry, " is an Italian word signifying the sentence which 
gentlemen carry in a scroll under, or above, their arms. It 
is likewise latinized dictum, a saying whence comes the old 
word Ditton, used in our books of blazonry. Camden, the 
English herald, uses the word inscriptio ; and some call it 
epigraph, because mottos often consist of many words, com- 
posing proverbs, witty and religious sentences, relative to, 
and explanatory of the arms of the owners, and may be 
used by any person who has right to carry arms. 

" Sometimes," says Sir George Mackenzie, another 
writer of great repute on Scottish heraldry, " the motto has 
reference to the supporters of the arms, as in the instance of 



THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

Buccleuch, which are two ladies in rich and antique apparel, 
with their locks falling over their shoulders, The word 
here is Amo, and was assumed by a predecessor of the noble 
family when he obtained his first estate, by marrying the 
rich heiress of Murdistone . ' ' The learn ed knight continues 
his observations on this subject by stating, that it is com- 
mon "to bear either the name of the family who meet, or 
the name of the place at which they are accustomed to 
meet. The motto, or war-cry," he says, " was proclaimed 
everywhere by a person who carried a cross of wood burn- 
ing, or the fiery cross, by which, and the war-cry, all the 
cadets of the family were advertised to meet at the ordinary 
place. Of old, all of a family dwelt in a neighbourhood ; 
and these 'words,' he concludes, are decided marks of 
antiquity, and not allowed to any but chiefs of clans, who 
had many followers, vassals, and dependants, and in effect 
they were useless to all others." 

This very circumstance in the gathering of the clans is 
introduced by Sir Walter Scott, in the poem of "the Lady 
of the Lake." The consecrated wooden cross is represented 
as circulated with incredible celerity, "from crag to crag 
the signal flew," through the whole territory of the chief- 
tain ; and the eager fidelity with which it was obeyed, is told 
with great spirit and felicity. 

The halls of ancient baronial mansions, which are now 
found enriched with curiously carved furniture, were not, 
all of them at least, formerly so well provided. It is 
remarked by Mr. Surtees, that an observable circumstance 






THE HALL AT BRANKSOME. 

in old testamentary dispositions, is the extreme paucity of 
rich furniture, or of articles of the precious metals, either 
for use or ornament. While the castles of the greater 
barons blazed with plate and jewellery, the middling gentry 
seem to have scarcely possessed furniture for one state 
room, and a few personal and hereditary trinkets. A red 
bed, and a single suit of tapestry hangings, descended from 
generation to generation. The gold chain, the signet, and 
seal of arms, were for the heir, whilst to the younger 
children a few silver spoons are esteemed a considerable 
legacy. 

The great hall of Richard Fermor, merchant of the 
staple, in 1540, was very scantily furnished. It contained 
only a piece of tapestry hanging at the high dais, three 
tables with forms and tressels mortized in the ground, and 
a hawk's perch. This gentleman raised a noble fortune, 
and lived at Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire. He was 
arrested for relieving traitorous persons, for which he after- 
wards lost his estate. The inventory of his goods is in the 
British Museum. 



MELROSE. 

" If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight ; 
For the gay beams of lightsome day, 
Gild but to flout the ruins grey. 
When the broken arches are black in night, 
And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 
When the cold light's uncertain shower 
Streams on the ruin'd central tower; 
When buttress and buttress, alternately, 
Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; 
When silver edges the imagery, 
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto ii. vol. vi. p. 73. 



This is one of the largest and most magnificent buildings 
in the kingdom of Scotland. Its remains consist principally 
of some fragments of the cloisters, which are richly orna- 
mented: in the nave divine service is still performed. It 
affords specimens of ecclesiastical architecture of the most 
exquisite beauty ; the roof of the chancel remains, and is 
supported by clustered pillars, the capitals and bases of 
which are ornamented with sculptured foliage, most deli- 
cately executed. It was founded by King David the First, 
in 1136, who dedicated it to the Virgin Mary, and endowed 
it with extensive privileges, and very ample revenues : the 
monks were of the Cistercian order, brought from the 





lilUfe:.^l^^ ■ ;i| -' : Mvl 



MELROSE. 

celebrated Abbey of Bivaulx, in Yorkshire ; it was the 
mother church of all establishments of that order in Scot- 
land. The church is built in the form of St. John's Cross ; 
the dimensions of what is yet remaining being two hundred 
and fifty-eight feet in length, one hundred and thirty-seven 
feet in breadth, and the circumference about nine hundred 
and forty-three feet. The style of architecture does not 
accord with the early date usually assigned to it : but it is of a 
later period, and in all probability belongs to the fourteenth 
century. It suffered dreadfully in the fierce Border contests 
between England and Scotland ; and in the civil wars 
Cromwell bombarded it from the Gatton-side hills. 

Alexander the Second, king of Scotland, is said to lie 
buried below the high altar, and an inscription once pointed 
out his tomb. On the south side of the altar is a marble, 
which is conjectured to have been erected to Waldevus, 
the second abbot, who was canonized. Many of the noble 
line of Douglas also lie here ; among whom is James, the 
son of William, Earl of Douglas, who was slain at the 
battle of Otterbum. In the Chapter-house are deposited 
the remains of many other men eminent in the early history 
of Scotland. 

On the south east of this church are a great many carvings 
of musicians, admirably executed, with much variety in their 
countenances, accompanied with their various instruments ; 
also of nuns with their veils, some of them richly dressed. 

The abbots of St. Mary had such extensive jurisdiction, 
and the privilege of girth and sanctuary interfered so much 

F 




/ 7 i //f' 



6C / &/%, // 



iiiJc.u. V-iVui-d 18.V lv Oi.ui« Tilt. Fleet Street. 



MARGARET. 

Lmj of the Last Minstrel, vol. vi. p. 89. 



' And she, when love, scarce told, scarce hid, 
Lent to her cheek a livelier red ; 
When the half sigh her swelling breast 
Against the silken ribbon prest ; 
When her blue eyes the secret told, 
Though shaded by her locks of gold : — 
Where would you find the peerless fair, 
With Margaret of Branksome might compare ! 

Far more fair Margaret loved and bless'd 
The hour of silence and of rest. 
On the high turret sitting lone, 
She waked at times the lute's soft tone ; 
Touched a wild note, and all between 
Thought of her bower of hawthorns green. 
Her golden hair stream' d free from band, 
Her fair cheek rested on her hand, 
Her blue eyes sought the west afar, 
For lovers love the western star." 



ROSLIN. 

It glared on Roslin's castled rock." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto vi. volvi. p. 207- 



Roslin is scarcely more fortunate in its own scenery, than 
in the romantic and classical vicinage of Hawthornden. 
The narrow glen, which connects these celebrated spots, 
is one of those beautiful and sequestered valleys which so 
often occur in Scotland, and generally, where they are least 
to be expected from the appearance of the general land- 
scape. It often happens, that amid an open and com- 
paratively unpicturesque country, where there is little to 
interest the traveller, he is conducted by the course of some 
fairy stream into a dell, abounding with all the romantic 
varieties of cliff, and copsewood, and waterfall, through 
which the brook has found itself a more wild and pleasing 
coarse than along the surface of the more level ground. 

The Vale of Koslin is precisely of this description. 
You may in many places, approach its very verge without 
being aware of its existence ; and on the other hand, when 
you have descended into its recesses, you seem to be in a 
primitive wilderness. The cliffs which arise on either side 
of the dell are pleasingly varied, and present themselves to 




1 

I 

I 



R0SLIN. 

the spectator as the shattered ruins of some ancient building, 
of which some parts still stand firm in all their former 
strength, while others, broken and shattered, impend over 
and threaten the spectator. The copsewood with which 
they are clothed, wherever the roots can find room or sub- 
sistence among the chasms of the rocks, adds inexpressible 
beauty to the scene, especially in spring, when the green 
leaves are in all their first tenderness of colouring ; and in 
autumn, when they have received the gorgeous but melan- 
choly tints, which betoken their approaching fall. It is 
only to be regretted that few of these beautiful trees have 
been permitted to grow to full size. 

But Roslin, and its adjacent scenery, have other associ- 
ations dear to the antiquary and the historian, which may 
fairly entitle it to precedence over every other Scottish 
scene of the same kind. Nearly opposite the castle, is 
Hawthornden, once the residence of Drummond the poet, 
and historian of Scotland ; and here he entertained for some 
time Ben Jonson as his guest, who is reported to have 
walked from London to enjoy his society, and to view the 
beautiful scenery which surrounded his dwelling. The 
mouldering ruins of the castle, with its tremendous triple 
tier of vaults, were long the abode of the proud family of 
St. Clair, whose titles at one period of their history would 
have wearied a herald, yet who were, perhaps, 

" not so wealthy as any English yeoman." 

It is uncertain at what period this castle was first erected ; 



BOSLIN. 

nor is the name of the founder much better known ; but 
William St. Clair, the architect of the beautiful chapel, 
resided here in great state. In 1544, it was nearly de- 
molished by the English troops sent by King Henry the 
Eighth, under the command of the Earl of Hertford : it 
was surrended to General Monk during the civil wars, 
and a local insurrection which broke out in 1681, subjected 
it to further injury. Roslin gives the title of Earl to its 
present possessor, the son of the celebrated Lord Lough- 
borough, in whose person the earldom was first created. 

Roslin is a spot celebrated in Scotch song ; the beautiful 
melody of Roslin Castle is well known : 

" While Roslin castle heard the swain 
And echoed back the cheerful strain." — 

And another of our poets, thus describes beauties 
which surround it ; 

" Ewes and lambs on braes ran Meeting, 
Linties sang on ilka tree ; 
Frae the Wast, the sun near setting, 
Flamed on Roslin's towers sae hie : 
Roslin's towers and braes so bonny, 

Craigs and waters, woods and glen ; 
Roslin's banks, unpeered by ony, 
., Save the Muse's Hawthornden." 

Macniel. 



WHITBY, 

-High Whitby's cloister' d pile." 

Marmion, canto ii. vol. vii. p. 93. 



The Abbey of Whitby, in the archdeaconry of Cleaveland, 
on the coast of Yorkshire, was founded A.D. 657, and was 
raised by Oswy, king of Northumberland, in gratitude 
to heaven for a victory he obtained over Penda, king of 
Mercia. It contained both monks and nuns, of the Bene- 
dictine order ; but, contrary to the usual regulation of such 
foundations, the abbess was superior to the abbot. This 
monastery, which was destroyed by the Danes on one of 
their incursions into this island, was rebuilt by Sir William 
de Percy, in the reign of the Conqueror 1074, for Bene- 
dictine monks, and by him dedicated to St. Peter and St. 
Hildo ; but it did not assume the dignity of an abbey until 
the time of William Percy, a descendant of the founder, 
and third prior of Whitby. At the dissolution of the 
monasteries, in 1541, it was surrendered to the king by 
Henry de Vail, the last abbot. There were then no nuns, 
nor had there been, for a long time previous to its dis- 
solution. 

" Thus fell," says the historian of Whitby, " the monks 



WHITBY ABBEY. 

and their possessions, a prey to the lust, avarice, and tyranny 
of Henry VIII. Yet what seems most to be lamented is, 
the destruction that was then made among those venerable 
piles and noble structures that were the glory and ornament 
of our nation, and would still have continued so, if they 
had been left untouched by sacrilegious hands. Among 
others, Whitby Abbey, after being plundered of the wood, 
the timber, and lead on its roof, as also of its bells, and 
every thing else belonging thereto that could be sold, was 
left standing with its stone walls, a mere skeleton of what 
it had formerly been, to crumble away by degrees into 
dust, or to form aheap of rubbish, which might barely shew 
passengers in future ages that there Whitby Abbey formerly 
stood. Some part of the lead was used for the roof of the 
church of St. Mary. The Abbey bells were put on board ship 
to be convej^ed to London ; but tradition states, that within 
a mile of the harbour the vessel sank, and that the bells are 
now remaining there. The stained glass windows were 
undisturbed, but time and petty plundering by visitors 
have entirely dispersed them/' 

The length of the church is two hundred and twenty-two 
feet, in breadth fift}'-six feet ; the nave thirty feet, the 
aisles thirteen feet each ; the walls are sixty feet high ; and 
the height of the tower was a hundred and twenty feet. 
From its elevated situation this tower became a most useful 
sea-mark on this very dangerous coast ; and formed, at the 
same time, a very interesting and conspicuous feature in 
the romantic scenery of this district. On the 25th of 



WHITBY. 

August, 1830, this venerable and striking object yielded 
to the ravages of time, and the attacks to which it had 
been exposed for so many ages. For some years previous, 
it had exhibited symptoms of decay; and it is deeply to be 
regretted that no efforts were made to preserve an object, 
which, independent of the veneration due to it as a monu- 
ment of our ancestors' splendid spirit in building, was of 
high importance to the mariner. The cliff, upon which 
this remarkable object stood, was nearly two hundred feet 
above low-water mark. Camden, and other ancient writers, 
mention it as an established fact, that the wild geese, which 
are here very common, were unable to fly over the abbey 
and its environs, and that in attempting it they suddenly 
fell to the ground. This he proceeds to reason upon, and 
supposes to arise from some antipathy, or hidden quality, in 
the earth. It is, however, certain that St. Hilda and 
her monastery have lost their attractive powers; all sorts of 
birds now flying over with impunity. 



G 



CRICHTOUN CASTLE. 

" At length up that wild dale they wind, 
Where Crichtoun Castle crowns the bank." 

Marmion, canto iv. vol. vii. p. 197. 



The Castle of Crichton is situated on the banks of the 
Tyne, there an inconsiderable stream, ten miles south 
of Edinburgh. It was built at different periods, and forms 
one large square pile of irregular height, inclosing an inner 
court. It is situated upon a sharp angle of the almost 
precipitous bank, which is the boundary of the dale. The 
lofty, massive, and solid architecture impresses the spec- 
tator with an emotion rather of awe than beauty ; yet the 
interior is far from presenting architectural details unworthy 
of observation. It consists of a stately quadrangle, sur- 
rounded by buildings of various ages and distinct characters,, 
in which may be traced something of the change of pos- 
sessors which this castle has undergone. 

In the north-west angle of the quadrangle, is a small 
keep, or Donjon-tower, which seems to have been the 
habitation of the Crichtons, in their earlier days. The 
style of building on the north-western angle, indicates its 
erection before the rest of the castle ; its antiquity, there- 
fore, will probably draw back to the fourteenth century. 



CRICHTON CASTLE. 

It is not so easy to assign a precise date to other parts 
of the castle — 

" The towers in different ages rose," — 
but the eastern side is the most modern, as well as the 
most beautiful, and offers an example of splendid architec- 
ture, very unusual in Scottish castles. The inner front 
rises above a piazza running the whole length of the front, 
the pillars of which have their capitals richly decorated 
with anchors entwined with cables. This favourite orna- 
ment inclines us to refer the building to one of the Earls 
of Bothwell, who were high-admirals of Scotland ; and we 
are disposed to assign the work to the splendour of Earl 
Patrick, whose taste for magnificence was very great. 
Above the portico, the stones of the whole front are cut 
into diamond facets, the angular projections of which pro- 
duce a variety of light and shade, and give a varied, rich, 
and beautiful effect to the building. The interior corre- 
sponds to the external elegance of the structure. The first 
floor seems to have been occupied by a magnificent gallery, 
or banqueting room, well lighted, and running the whole 
length of the front ; to which access was formerly given by 
a stately staircase, now entirely demolished. The soffets 
of this staircase have been ornamented with cordage and 
rosettes, carved in freestone. The plainer and less inter- 
esting parts of the castle contain such a variety of halls 
and chambers, as shew the power of the baron, and the 
number of his followers. The kitchen, which is in the 
north-eastern angle of the castle, corresponds in gloomy 



CRICHTON CASTLE. 

magnitude to the rest of the building. In a large stone 
chimney in one of the apartments, a flat arch is formed 
of freestone very ingeniously dovetailed into each other. 

We must not omit to mention the dungeon — a horrible 
vault, only accessible by a square hole in the roof, through 
which captives were lowered into this den of darkness and 
oblivion. 

" And shuddering, still we may explore, 
Where oft whilom were captives pent, 
The darkness of thy Massy More." 

The family of Crichton was ancient and honorable, 
but remained long among the rank of lesser barons, and 
owed its great rise to the genius and talent of an individual 
statesman, distinguished for policy and intrigue beyond 
what is usual in a dark age. The name being territorial, 
and derived from the neighbouring village, seems to have 
been assumed about the period when surnames became 
common in Scotland. A William de Crichton occurs in 
the Lennox Chartulary,* about 1240. The history of this 
distinguished family is most interesting ; and has been very 
amply dilated upon by Sir Walter Scott, in his account 
of this fortress, in the Provincial Antiquities of Scotland. 

* This Chartulary forms one of the republications of that spirited 
association, the Maitland Club of Glasgow. 



LINLITHGOW. 

" Of all the palaces so fair, 

Built for the royal dwelling, 
In Scotland, far beyond compare 
Linlithgow is excelling." 

Marmion, canto iv. vol. vii. p. 202. 



The town of Linlithgow, distinguished by the combined 
strength and beauty of its situation, must have been early 
selected as a royal residence. The castle is only mentioned 
as being a peel, a pile ; that is, an embattled tower sur- 
rounded by an outwork. In 1300, it was rebuilt or 
repaired by Edward L, and used as one of the citadels by 
which he hoped to maintain his usurped dominion in Scot- 
land. It is described by Barbour as " meikle and stark, 
and stuffed weel." Piers Luband, a Gascoigne knight, 
was appointed the keeper until the autumn of 1313, when 
the Scots recovered possession of the castle. The means 
by which they did this has been detailed by Sir Walter 
Scott.* The ancient castle was destroyed by fire in 1414; 
but the palace arose from its ashes with greater splendour 
than before; for the family of Stuart, unhappy in so many 
respects, were all of them fortunate in their taste for the 

* Provincial Antiquities of Scotland. Vol. ii, 



LINLITHGOW. 

fine arts, and particularly for that of architecture. James 
the Fourth, as splendid as gallant, seems to have founded 
the most magnificent part of Linlithgow palace, together 
with the noble entrance betwixt two flanking towers, bear- 
ing on rich entablatures the royal arms of Scotland, with 
the collar of the Order of the Thistle, Garter, and Saint 
Michael. 

James V. was much attached to Linlithgow, and added 
to the palace both the chapel and parliament-hall, the last 
of which is peculiarly striking. So that when he brought 
his bride Mary of Guise there, amid the festivities which 
accompanied their wedding, she might have more reasons 
than mere complaisance for highly commending the edifice, 
and saying, that she never saw a more princely palace. It 
was long her residence, and that of her royal husband: 
Queen Mary was born here. 

James VI. loved the royal residence at Linlithgow, and 
completed the original plan of the palace, closing the great 
square by a stately range of apartments of great architec- 
tural beauty. He also erected a magnificent fountain in 
the palace-yard, now in ruins, as are all the buildings 
around. Another grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the 
street of the town, which, with the number of fine springs, 
leads to the popular rhyme, 

" Linlithgow for wells, 
Stirling for bells." 

When the sceptre parted from Scotland, Oblivion sat down 



LINLITHGOW. 

in the halls of Linlithgow, but her absolute desolation was 
reserved for the memorable era of 1745-6. About the middle 
of January in that year, General Hawley marched at the 
head of a strong army, to raise the siege of Stirling. On 
the night of the 17th, he returned to Linlithgow, with all 
the marks of a defeat, and his disordered troops were 
quartered in the palace, and the great fires which they made 
on the hearths were such as to endanger the safety of the 
building ; in fact, soon after their departure, the palace 
caught fire, and the ruins alone remain to shew its former 
splendour. The situation is eminently beautiful. It stands 
on a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost 
into the midst of the lake. The form is that of a square 
court, composed of buildings four stories high, with towers 
at the angles. The fronts within the square, and the 
windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the rooms, 
as well as the width and character of the staircases are 
upon a magnificent scale. One banquet room is ninety- 
four feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty-three feet high, 
with a gallery for music. The king's wardrobe, or dress- 
ing room, looking to the west, projects over the walls so 
as to have a delightful prospect on three sides, and is one of 
the most enviable boudoirs ever seen. 

There were two main entrances to the palace: that from 
the south ascends rather steeply from the town, and passes 
through a striking Gothic archway, flanked by two round 
towers. The portal has been richly adorned by sculpture. 

The other grand entrance is from the eastward; the 



LINLITHGOW. 

gateway is at some height from the foundation of the wall, 
and opposite to it are the remains of a perron, or ramp 
of mason work, which those who desired to enter must 
have ascended by steps. 

The narrow escape which this ancient pile had of being 
converted into a receptacle for prisoners during the late 
war, has been narrated by Sir Walter Scott, in a note to 
the new edition of Waverley, who adds, — " in taking leave of 
this subject we may use the words of old Sir David of the 
Mount : 

Farewell, Lithgow, whose palace of plesaunce, 
Might be a pattern in Portugal or France." 







! 

e h - l e : 



LORD MARMIONS ARMOUR, 

AND THE HERALDRY OF THE HEROES OF FLODDEN. 

" And as the ancient art could stain 
Achievements in the storied pane ; 
Irregularly traced and planned, 
But yet so glowing and so grand/' 

Marmion, canto v. vol. vii. p. 236. 



Although the hero of Sir Walter Scott's poem is a 
fictitious personage, the circumstances of the story of 
" Marmion" are purely historical, and refer to the events 
which occurred at the beginning of the martial reign of 
Henry VIII. ; a time when all taste for social enjoyments 
had been depressed by the long continuance of the civil 
wars, in which so many gay and gallant nobles had perished. 

Armour was then very generally worn, either fluted or 
plain, and specimens of both kinds are found in great 
abundance in the splendid collections that have been 
formed in various parts of the kingdom. A very fine and 
rich suit of armour, which, undoubtedly, belonged to King 
Henry himself, is preserved in the Tower of London, and 
may be truly deemed the greatest curiosity in that ample 
depository. 

Fashions of armour arose in Italy and Germany, and were 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

slow in finding their way into England, so as to become 
general, but the beautiful fluted armour, invented in Ger- 
many, was at this time common. The suit of King Henry 
VIII., in the Horse Armoury, is plain, but is entirely 
covered with very curious engravings, exhibiting a striking 
picture of the superstitious feelings of the times, which con- 
ceived a man's body to be doubly protected when not only 
sheathed in tempered steel, but overspread with legends of 
favourite saints ! On the king's breast-plate is the heroic 
figure of St. George, the patron of England, and of the 
Order of the Garter ; on the back plate of the same suit is 
engraved St. Barbara, who is known by the tower, which 
has become her symbol. 

The mottos upon every piece of the armour are exceed- 
ingly quaint and appropriate. Man utitur aculeo Eer, imply- 
ing that a thrust of the king's spear is rather more than the 
sting of a bee, is as frequently repeated upon this singu- 
larly curious suit as the royal motto, €>ieu et mon Droit, 
assumed originally by King Edward IV. as a means of 
perpetuating his signal victory over the Lancastrian party, 
in the decisive battle of Mortimer's Cross. 

Almost all the breast-plates of this period have a globose 
form, with a slight edge in the centre, which is called the 
tapul ; this was an old fashion revived, but is the distin- 
guishing criterion of the date of the armour. A complete 
suit of plate then worn, consisted of pauldrons, or shoulder 
pieces, brassarts and vambraces, as well as cuisses and sol- 
lerets; and a knight, when armed cap-a-pie, must have 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

required a smith to assist him in his attire; the camp occa- 
sionally rang with the noise of 

" The armourers accomplishing the knights, 
With busy hammers closing rivets up." 

The distinguishing crest on the top of the helmet usually 
consisted of stiff leather, wood, or some substance that could 
be easily fashioned into shape, but was at the same time 
light to the wearer. The first of the Scottish kings, who 
is found represented on his great seal with a crest, is Alex- 
ander III. in 1249, coeval with Henry III. of England ; 
this, however, is only composed of feathers originally borne 
as a means of distinction — a circumstance alluded to by Sir 
Walter Scott, as 

" The plumed crests of chieftains brave." 

King James I. of Scotland, who was educated in the court 
of Henry V. of England, is represented with a lion on his 
bascinet, for a crest : it was this object that rendered the 
commander known in the heat of battle. Here, in the 
poem, its use is clearly defined — 

" Amid the scene of tumult high, 
They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly." 

In the shield of his hero it has been objected to Sir Walter 
Scott, that he has committed an error in heraldry. The 
falcon of Marmion is said to have 

" Soared sable in an azure field." Canto i. 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

According to a popular poet in the reign of Charles I. 

" Metal on metal is false heraldry ; 
And yet the known Godfrey of Bouloign's coat 
Shines in exception to the herald's vote." — Cleveland. 

Many ancient coats of arms, besides that of Jerusalem, ex- 
hibit a deviation from the canons of the heralds, and hence 
Sir Walter Scott's supposed mistake may be justified by 
undoubted precedents, and the nicer critics in heraldry can 
be refuted from their own precious volumes. 

The battle-axe, a most formidable weapon, was used by 
persons of distinction at this period; and it is recorded that 
the king's battle-axe, together with his helmet, gauntlets, 
and crest, were amongst the offerings at the high altar in 
the ceremony of the funeral of Henry VII. at Westminster. 

In the early part of his reign, when Henry VIII. was 
in the bloom of youth and health, he was so extremely 
desirous of promoting martial exercises amongst the 
younger courtiers, that his majesty caused a place to be 
prepared in Greenwich Park, for the queen and ladies of 
the court to see a fight with battle-axes. In this encounter 
the king personally engaged and fought with a German 
named Giot, who was remarkable for bodily strength, and 
was so formidable an opponent, that he struck Sir Edward 
Howard to the ground.* 

The malles, or mazuelles of steel, also appear to have 
been very tremendous instruments in the hands of strong- 
active men, such as wielded them in Flodden Field ; these 

* Hollingshed. 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

are particularly mentioned in a cotemporary poem on that 

battle — 

Wmo ^>cotc$ earte of an ancient race, 
QDne Cratoforn calleti, t^e orijer ^ontroge, 
ilea tfoelfce t^oussanti <§>cotc?jmett strong;, 
3nti manfully met toitlfc tfjeir foeg, 
TOt|j leanen meffg, ana lancet l<mp> 

Muratori, the celebrated Italian antiquary, relates, that in 
a close conflict of cavalry, it became exceedingly difficult to 
overthrow, or even wound powerful men in armour, sitting 
on horseback. Their persons being enveloped in hauberks, 
helmets, and other iron coverings, completely eluded the 
power of swords, darts, arrows, and such like weapons. For 
this reason, it was necessary to strike men so defended 
with iron maces, or else to turn the attack on the horses, 
when by making the charger fall, they might seize the 
rider, or if he tumbled on the ground, the weight of his 
armour rendered him unable to contend longer with any 
effect. " Alle Cinghie," or to the girths, was the captain's 
cry when he wished his men to stab them, and the horses 
were immediately pierced with lances, swords, or any other 
sharp weapons.* 

The partizan was introduced in the reign of Henry VIII. 
Its blade is much broader than that of the ancient pike, and 
differed from it by having that part next the staff formed 
in the manner of a crescent. This weapon is still carried 
by the king's yeomen of the guard ; a body of men originally 
raised by Henry VII., and usually considered as the very 

* Antiq. Med. M\i. Dissert. 26. 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

first formation of a regular standing military force in Eng- 
land. Amongst Hollar's engravings are several designs by- 
Hans Holbein, for sword and dagger hilts, made for King 
Henry VIII. , which are very elegantly enriched with 
arabesque work, &c. ; the dagger for the king is particu- 
larly splendid; but the sword and dagger in the annexed 
engraving are faithful representations of the actual weapons 
belonging to King James IV. of Scotland, now preserved 
in the Herald's College, London. The king met his fate, 
at the same time that 

" The crest of the noble, the plume of the knight 
Were trampled and lost in the dark Flodden fight." 

This Battle is universally described by historians as rashly 
undertaken, unfortunately conducted, and fatally terminated. 
The English monarch received intelligence of the battle of 
Flodden Field, when encamped before the city of Tournay 
in Flanders, and it appears that the deceased King James's 
armour was presented as a trophy to Henry's queen, Kathe- 
rine of Arragon. When at Woburn Abbey, and on her way 
to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, the queen wrote 
to Henry VIII. the letter which is now preserved in the 
British Museum. Its style and language is simple and 
pathetic : — " My Lord Howard hath sent me, a letter open, 
to your Grace, by the which ye shall see at length, the 
grete victory that our Lord hath sent your subjects, in your 

absence." " For hastiness of Rouge Croix I could not 

send your Grace the piece of the King of Scot's cote which 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

John Glyn now bringeth. In this, your Grace shall see 
how I can kepe my promise, sending you for your banners 
a king's cote. I thought to send himself to you, but our 
English men's hearts would not suffer it. It should have 
been better for him to have been in peace than have this 
rewarde." 

The body of King James IV. found on the day following 
the battle, after being recognised by Lord Dacre and 
others, was conveyed to Berwick. It was taken thence to 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and from the latter place was brought 
to London. The body of the king was afterwards actually 
presented to Queen Katherine, at Richmond, and by her 
order, was royally interred in the monastery at West 
Shene. It is also stated, that when the priory was dissolved 
in the reign of Edward VI., the coffin of the king was 
taken up. Stowe, in his Annals, says, " I have beene 
shewed the same body, as was affirmed, lapped in lead, 
thrown into a waste room, amongst old timber, stone, and 
other rubble." Other historians of London say that some 
workmen wantonly cut the head off the body, and that it 
was brought by a young glazier to Queen Elizabeth, who 
was struck with its sweetness arising from the cerement. 
The man kept it for some time at his house in Wood-street, 
Cheapside, London, and at length delivered it to the sexton 
of St. Ann's Church, in the same street, who deposited it 
amongst the bones in the charnel-house. 

The large armorial hall-window in the back ground of 
this picture, is a representation of one of the most beautiful 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

features in the architectural decorations of the Tudor period. 
It is filled with heraldic emblazonments commemorative of 
the principal events recorded in the poem of Marmion ; and 
bears, in diagonal lines, the word, jflotmen, frequently re- 
peated. Sentences so disposed are the usual accompani- 
ments to the full quartered escutcheons which are found 
displayed within broad banded wreaths of rich foliage, orna- 
mented at intervals in congenial style. Correct heraldical 
designs are yet to be attained by the modern school of glass 
painters; the " storied windows richly dight" of the poet, 
seem quite beyond their comprehension. Such gorgeous 
glazing is only now to be met with in the superb mansions 
of our old nobility, where the eye of the prying antiquary 
alone discovers its beauty. He never ceases to admire the 
splendid effect produced by the ruby and emerald tints of 
the early painters 

" And as the ancient art could stain 
Achievements on the storied pane," 

carefully notes the quaint devices and heraldic badges of 
remote ancestry which he finds depicted. The arms in the 
head of the first bay, or division, of the window before us, 
are those of King Henry VIII., who bore on his shield, 
Azure, three fleurs de lis or, for France, as descended from 
the heiress of that kingdom, and quartered with gules, 
three lions passant guardant or, for England, within the 
garter, and regally crowned. Immediately beneath this 
escutcheon, is the arms of Thomas Howard, Earl of 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

Surrey, K. G., commander of the vanguard of the army at 
Flodden Field, and son and heir of John Duke of Norfolk, 
Gules, on a bend between six cross croslets fitchy argent, an 
escutcheon; or charged with a demi-lion within a double 
tressure counterflory, with an arrow through the mouth, of 
the first, for Howard ; quartered with gules, three lions 
passant guardant or, over all a label of five points argent, 
for Brotherton. Chequee or and azure, for Warren, and 
gules, a lion rampant argent, for Mowbray. The shield 
on the bend, in the paternal arms of this nobleman, is an 
augmentation of the original coat of Howard expressly 
granted to him in remembrance of the victory gained over 
the Scots at Flodden. 

In the lowest compartment of the painted window are 
the arms of Sir John Stanley, which are blazoned argent, 
on a bend azure, three stags' heads cabossed or. The 
heads of deer are borne by the Stanley family as hereditary 
foresters of Wirral in Cheshire, and were adopted by them 
instead of their paternal coat of Audley, which was originally 
their name. In the head of the second bay of the armorial 
window are the arms of King James IV. Or, a lion 
rampant within a double tressure counterflory gules, encir- 
cled by a riband charged with the motto of the Order of 
the Thistle, and surmounted by the crown of Scotland. 

A single line of Sir Walter Scott has expressed this 
armorial bearing on the herald's tabard : 

" The ruddy lion rampt in gold." 

i 



LORD MARMION'S ARMOUR. 

It is perhaps not generally known that William Dunbar, a 
cotemporary author, in his poem of the Thistle and the 
Rose, had previously described King James's person under 
the semblance of a Lion, his heraldic cognizance : 

" Lusty of shape, licht of deliverance, 
Reid of color as the ruby glance 
In field of gold, he stude full rampantly, 
With flower de luces circlet pleasantly." 

Beneath the king's shield, in the window, is that of Alex- 
ander Earl of Huntley, who had the command of the van 
of the Scottish army at the battle of Flodden Field. 
Azure, three boar's heads couped or, for Gordon, his paternal 
name, surmounted by a coronet of his dignity. 

The remaining emblazonment to be described, is the 
shield of William Earl of Montrose, the firm and steady 
friend of the unfortunate king, and who was slain in this 
fatal battle. Or, on a chief sable three escallops of the 
field, for Graham, his family name, quartered with argent, 
three roses gules, for the Earldom of Montrose. 

Armorial subjects were the usual ornaments of the large 
bay windows, but there are several instances in which full- 
length figures are represented, as in the series of the 
Knights of the Garter at Stamford, the Fitz Alans at 
Arundel, and the Beauchamps at Warwick. The most 
ancient in the kingdom are probably the genealogical series 
of the Clares and Despensers at Tewkesbury in Gloucester?: 
shire, enshrined under rich canopies of variegated colours. 



BRAID HILLS. 

; The train has left the hills of Braid." 

Marmion, canto v. vol. vii. p. 239. 



The Hills of Braid are rocky eminences, of considerable 
height, arising to the south of Edinburgh, and within about 
a mile and a half of the suburbs. They are divided by a 
small brook, called the Braid Burn. The prospect from 
these hills, though not certainly the richest and most 
romantic in the vicinity of Edinburgh, is possessed of 
extreme beauty, and excels others in the magnificence with 
which the Frith of Forth, its islands, and its northern 
shores, lie displayed as the back-ground of the Scottish 
metropolis. 

The property has, as it is frequently the case when 
situated near the metropolis, passed through several hands. 
But a much more remarkable change has been wrought 
upon its external appearance within these thirty 
years, than any which could have arisen from a mere 
change of landlords. Before that period the Hills of 
Braid and Blackford were in the state of a wild sheep 
pasture, partly consisting of the softest and most verdant 
turf, covered with whins and broom, through which the 
grey faces of the rock shewed themselves at intervals. 



BRAID HILLS. 

Through this scene strayed the little rivulet in its narrow 
glen, into which, when his eye was satiated with the mag- 
nificent view from the hill, the stranger might descend, as 
into a silent and solitary scene, which might have been 
many miles distant from the abode of man. A natural 
alcove, or hollow in the rock, was a favourite retreat of the 
High-school boys, who, when tired with seeking birds' - 
nests or gathering wild berries, used to huddle themselves 
together in the cove, as it was called, and recount legends 
of the hermits who had dwelt there in Popish times, or 
of the more recent adventures of covenanted martyrs 
supposed to have sought refuge in this sequestered spot 
from the sword of persecution. That the little hollow 
should have been the dwelling of an anchorite is impos- 
sible; but there is more foundation for the other stories, 
since we read that Mr. John Dick, a zealous covenanter, 
who left a very warm testimony against the corruptions and 
oppressions of the time, was apprehended when lurking 
about Braid's Craigs. 

This wild scene, the refuge of persecuted fanatics in 
former days, and the retreat of truant school-boys in later 
times, now exhibits a wonderful proof of the force of 
Scottish agriculture ': every part of Blackford-hill, excepting 
the naked crags themselves, being now subjected to the 
plough, and bearing excellent crops. " An old man," says 
Sir Walter Scott, " may feel some regret at the change of 
scene, and the destruction of the sylvan retreat of his 
childhood, and repeat to himself the verse of Logan : 



BRAID HILLS. 

" The cruel plough has razed the green, 
Where, when a child, I play'd ; 
The axe has felled the hawthorn screen, 
The school-boy's summer shade." 

But no serious ^eight can be given to such remonstrances. 
It was on this spot that an interesting conversation took 
place between Dugald Stuart and the poet Burns, which has 
been detailed in the works edited by Dr. Currie, # who was 
greatly struck with the beauty of a scene, an early favourite 
of the author of Marmion, who thus eulogises it in another 
part of the poem: 

" Blackford ! on whose uncultured breast, 
Among the broom, and thorn, and whin, 

A truant-boy, I sought the nest, 

Or listed as I lay at rest, 
While rose, on breezes thin, 

The murmur of the city crowd, 

And from his steeple jangling loud, 
St. Giles's mingling din. 

Now from the summit to the plain, 

Waves all the hill with yellow grain ; 

Nought do I see unchanged remain, 

Save the rude cliffs and chiming brook/' 



Vol. i. p. 143. 



TANTALLON. 

" Then rest you on Tantallon hold." 

Marmion, canto v, vol. vii. p. 261. 



The ruins of Tantallon, or Temptallon, according to the 
more ancient orthography, occupy a promontory which 
projects from the rocky coast of East- Lothian, and hang- 
ing over the German Ocean just at the entrance of the 
Frith of Forth, forms a grand feature in the general picture 
as a vessel enters the estuary. The castle is situated about 
two miles from the little town of North Berwick, and com- 
mands a view of the wild and romantic rock, called the 
Bass, which, till the time of the revolution, was also the 
site of a fortress, strong in its insular situation and the 
inaccessible cliffs of the islet; long the hereditary castle 
of the ancient family of Lauder ; then a crown fortress, 
and chiefly used as a state prison. 

The ruins of Tantallon, though with little magnificence 
of architecture, have, from their extent, the strength of their 
original construction, and their striking situation, overhang- 
ing the billows of a wide and often troubled ocean, an 
imposing effect on the imagination. From the land side 
they are scarcely visible, until the curious visitor, surmount- 
ing a height which conceals them, finds himself close under 



^ 



TANTALLON. 

the external walls. This circumstance, which would render 
the castle an easy conquest since modern improvements in 
the art of war, took nothing in ancient times from its 
supposed impregnability. In form, the fortress is an irre- 
gular hexagon, occupying the whole promontory with 
strong walls and high towers, and turrets designed to flank 
them; and in the interior is, as usual, a keep, or Gothic 
citadel, with many other buildings of great size and extent, 
and vaults beneath them for receiving provisions, and often 
doubtless, for securing prisoners. The mind, when we 
enter the dilapidated court of this ancient and frowning 
ruin, is involuntarily carried back to the era of the mighty 
house of Douglas, so long the lords of Tantallon, amidst 
whose numerous fortresses and houses of defence, this was 
the principal on the eastern Border. 

Tantallon, however, was not an early possession of this 
distinguished family; it is believed to have belonged in 
more ancient times to the Earls of Fife, the descendants 
of Macduff. It was forfeited to the crown, in the year 
1425, and must have been soon afterwards bestowed by 
royal grant on the family of Douglas, which was then in 
the full pitch of its grandeur. 

Tantallon, however, amid the general confiscation of the 
domains of the ancient Earls of Douglas, passed with the 
castle and lordship itself, from the elder branch; but not 
from the family. 

The strength of this fortress enabled it to withstand 
several sieges in earlier days ; so much so that its strength 



TANTALLON. 

caused it to pass into a proverb, and indeed into a sort 
of song, of which the words preserved are — 

" Ding down Tantallon, 
Make a brig to the Bass." 

These two lines, recording the two attempts as equally 
impossible, were sung to the military air which formed the 
old Scotch reveillee. 

Tantallon, like other fortresses of Scotland, was garrisoned 
by the covenanters against the king in 1639, in despite, 
it may be presumed, of the inclination of its owner, the 
Marquis of Douglas. 

Finally it was defended against Cromwell, and taken 
after a short siege, the disadvantage of the rising ground 
in its front being found fatal to the defenders. About 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Marquis, 
afterwards Duke of Douglas, sold the estate of North 
Berwick, with the Castle of Tantallon, to Sir Hugh Dal- 
rymple, President of the Court of Session, who had been 
one of his guardians. The castle, which till then had con- 
tinued in a habitable condition, was dismantled entirely, 
and left to decay; while the lapse of a century in a 
situation so exposed, as well as the depredations of those 
who carried off stones from the ruins for rural purposes, 
have reduced the remains to their present condition. 

It is again mentioned in the same poem, in the following 
beautiful description — 



Close before them shewed 



His towers, Tantallon vast 



TANTALLON. 

Broad, massive, high, and stretching far, 

And held impregnable in war. 

On a projecting rock they rose, 

And round three sides the ocean flows, 

The fourth did battled walls enclose, 

And double mound and fosse. 
By narrow drawbridge, outworks strong, 
Through studded gates, an entrance long, 

To the main court they cross. 
It was a wide and stately square ; 
Around were lodgings fit and fair, 

And towers of various form, 
Which on the court projected far 
And broke its lines quadrangular. 
Here was square keep, there turret high, 
Or pinnacle that sought the sky, 
Whence oft the warder could descry 
The gathering ocean storm. " 






THE LADY CLARE. 

Marmion, canto vi. vol. vii. p. 309. 



" And, for they were so lonely, Clare 
Would to these battlements repair, 
And muse upon her sorrows there, 

And list the sea-bird's cry ; 
Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide 
Along the dark-grey bulwark's side, 
And ever on the heaving tide 

Look down with weary eye. 
Oft did the cliff, and swelling main, 
Rival the thoughts of Whitby's fane, — 
A home she ne'er might see again ; 

For she had laid adown, 
So Douglas bade, the hood and veil, 
And frontlet of the cloister pale, 

And Benedictine gown : 
It were unseemly sight, he said, 
A novice out of convent shade. — 
Now her bright locks with sunny glow, 
Again adorned her brow of snow ; 
Her mantle rich, whose borders, round, 
A deep and fretted broidery bound, 
In golden foldings sought the ground; 
Of holy ornament, alone 
Remained a cross with ruby stone ; 
And often did she look 
On that, which in her hand she bore, 
With velvet bound and broidered o'er, 
Her Breviary book." 




T„ ,,,-,.■„ Pufrfohed /;/• Oucrles ri£t,fi6] Fleet Street.lddf. 



; ^ii 




BENVENUE. 

High on the South, huge Benvenue 
Down on the lake in masses threw 
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl'd, 
The fragments of an earlier world." 

Lady of the Lake, canto i. vol. viii. p. 39. 



Benvenue, signifying the little mountain, so called from 
its relative size, compared with Ben-Ledi and Ben-Lomond. 
It is perhaps one of the most picturesque mountains in 
Great Britain; situated two thousand eight hundred feet 
above the level of the sea. On the side, besides the 
immense masses of rock, which appear in this and all other 
mountains to have been, by some convulsion of nature, torn 
from the summit, the whole slope is covered, for two-thirds 
upwards, with alders, birches, and mountain ashes, of 
ancient growth^ and sprinkled over the surface with a grace 
and beauty unattainable by the hand of art. At the first 
opening of Loch Katrine especially, and for a considerable 
way along the lake, the shoulder of Ben- Venue, stretching 
northward in abrupt masses towards the shore, presents a 
sloping ridge, elegantly feathered with birches, in a style 
which the pencil may, in some degree, exhibit, but which 
verbal description cannot easily represent. Ben- Venue is 
rendered venerable in the superstition of the Highlanders, 



BENVENUE. 

by the celebrated Coir-nan- Uriskin, the cave or recess of 
goblins, situated near the base of the mountain on its 
northern shoulder, and over-hanging the lake in solemn 
grandeur. The reputed occupants of this cave, the Urisks, 
were a sort of lubbarty supernaturals, who, like the brownies 
of England, could be gained over by kind attention to per- 
form the drudgery of the farm ; and it was betieved that 
many families in the Highlands had one of the order 
attached to it. 

After landing on the skirts of Ben- Venue, is this cele- 
brated cave, 

" It was a wild and strange retreat, 
As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet. 
The dell, upon the mountain's crest, 
Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast ; 
Its trench had staid full many a rock, 
Hurled by primaeval earthquake shock, 
From Ben- Venue's grey summit wild, 
And here in random ruin piled ; 
They frowned incumbent o'er the spot, 
And formed the rugged Sylvan grot." 

" To attempt to portray," says Mr. Graham,* " the gloomy 
grandeur of Coir-nan-Uriskin, after this most beautiful and 
faithfully just picture, would be presumptuous. Let it 
suffice to say, that it is a deep circular amphitheatre, at least 
six hundred yards of extent in its upper diameter, gradually 
narrowing towards the base, hemmed in all round by steep 

* Sketches of Perthshire. 



BENVENUE. 

and towering rocks, and rendered impenetrable to the rays 
of the sun by a close covert of luxurious trees. On the 
south and north it is bounded by the precipitous shoulder of 
Ben- Venue to the height of at least five hundred feet : and 
it is worth while to remark, that towards the east the work 
appears at some former period to have tumbled down, strew- 
ing the whole course of its fall with immense fragments, 
which now only serve to give shelter to foxes, wild cats, 
and badgers. The poet is sufficiently justified in supposing 
this to have occasioned the demolition of the cave that gave 
shelter to the Douglas and the fair Ellen. 

" Douglas and his daughter fair 
Sought for a space their safety there." 



ELLEN DOUGLAS AND FITZ-JAMES. 

11 She sighed, then smiled, and took the word — 
You see the guardian champion's sword, 
As light it trembles in his hand, 
As in my grasp a hazel wand." 

The Lady of the Lake, canto i. vol. viii. p. 54. 



The subject of this picture is the introduction of King 
James V. of Scotland, under his assumed title of James 
Fitz-James, the knight of Snowdoun, to the retreat of 
the Earl of Douglas on one of the beautiful wooded islands 
of Loch-Katrine, in Perthshire. This secure asylum, 
which had been provided for the high-minded earl by the 
care of Sir Roderic Dhu, a highland chieftain of Clan Alpin, 
was a kind of sylvan mansion, very rudely constructed of 
felled trees, moss, and thatch; its only decorations were 
the trophies of war, and of the chase, which were not un- 
gracefully hung round within this romantic abode. 

The noble and animated heroine of Sir Walter Scott's 
poem is represented descanting on one of the very large 
swords, in use at that chivalric period, in which the scene 
of " the Lady of the Lake" is laid. The espadon or two- 
handed sword, was highly esteemed by all military men 
at the commencement of the sixteenth century; but soon 
after the introduction of the rapier, in the reign of Eliza- 




: -;:-- : 









ELLEN AND FITZ-JAMES. 

beth, this ponderous weapon ceased to be used. The high 
opinion entertained of this description of sword, which 
exceeded the usual size, may be learned from several 
authors on fencing, who wrote at the time. One of these 
writers, from whom the young men of that day acquired 
their knowledge of the science, says, " Because its weight 
and bignes requires great strength, therefore those onlie 
are allotted to the handling thereof which are mightie and 
bigge to behould, great and strong in bodie, and of stout 
and valiant courage."* He must, indeed, have been one 
of the tallest and strongest of that noble brood, which com- 
mands the admiration of posterity. 

The position in which these apparently unwieldy weapons 
were held is very particularly described in the old Manuals 
of Exercise, which serve as text books to the antiquary, and 
the proportion of the espadon is thus given : " The perfect 
length of your two-handed sword is, the blade to be the 
length and hilt of your single sword." Being flourished 
"with great swiftness" its stroke then toppled down many 
opponents at a blow; the sword was, it seems, so well 
poised, by a skilful hand, as even to excite astonishment in 
the minds of the spectator. 

The art of tempering steel, it is well known, was carried 
to the greatest perfection in the swords that were made by 
the Ferrara family, and by the artists of Milan at this 

* See "The True Art of Defence," by Giacomo di Grassi, of Mo- 
dena. Translated by an English Gentleman, and edited by Churchyard 
the poet, in 1594. 



ELLEN AND FITZ-JAMES. 

time, and when armour formed the costume of the higher 
ranks of society, human ingenuity was taxed to the utmost 
to embellish every piece in the costliest and most elaborate 
manner. 

The simple bar, termed the cross, which formed the 
guard of the sword, was sometimes highly ornamented, and, 
as it had been customary with the knights of renown in 
making a vow, or on other solemn occasions, to kiss the 
cross of their swords in lieu of a crucifix, the blades near 
that part were frequently engraved with figures of favourite 
saints. 

A German sword, an unquestionable relic of " the 

glorious days,"* and which was made, probably, very soon 

after the reformation in religion had taken place, has an 

engraved stanza on its cross-bar, which may be thus 

translated — 

" A new saint, called Ruffian, 
Who ready is for every man."-}- 

Costume in its most comprehensive import, forms one of 
the most interesting departments of historical study, and 
includes not merely attire and personal ornament, but 
whatever constitutes the characteristic of any particular 
period. The influence which the wars in Italy had on 
the manners and habits of those engaged in them, caused 

* Now in the magnificent collection of armour at Goodrich Court, in 
Herefordshire, formed by the taste and experience of Sir Samuel 
Meyrick. 

f " Skelton's Illustrations of Ancient Armour." Plate ciii. 






ELLEN AND FITZ-JAMES. 

an extensive change in the national character of the rest 
of civilized Europe. The long vestments, which had for 
ages been the general attire, gradually became shorter and 
shorter; other parts of dress underwent various changes, all 
the patterns for which came from Italy, and the very broad 
shoes, a la guimbarde, superseded the use of the sharp 
pointed shoes that had been worn for several centuries. 

In the reign of James V. a light and graceful style, a 
decidedly chivalric air of attire, bespoke the prevalence of 
gallantry and romantic feeling, when the ideal beings of 
metrical fable furnished the models of actual manners in the 
Scottish court. 

The influence of a constant intercourse with France 
and Italy manifested itself in various modifications of dress 
derived from foreigners. The mode of curling the hair in 
ringlets was introduced by Eleanor of Austria; and while 
Venice sent its stuffs of gold and silver, Lombardy its 
jewellery, Genoa its velvets, and Milan its embroidery, 
Flanders and Germany contributed the singular fashion of 
pinked and slashed clothes, which originated in the vanity 
of shewing the extremely fine linen worn beneath them. 

Grotesque and extravagant as the fashion certainly was, 
the costume of that day was decidedly one of the most 
elegant ever adopted, and more especially that of the ladies, 
which must be regarded as a pattern of noble simplicity, 
gracefulness, and taste. 

This commanding elegance is, doubtless, to be attributed 
to the numerous Italian artists of celebrity, who, at the 

L 



ELLEN AND FITZ-JAMES. 

period of the revival of the fine arts, introduced great 
improvements into the costume of that time, and imparted 
a fancy and richness, in comparison with which all modern 
designs appear insipid, tame, and feeble.* 

The name of Douglas, that of the heroine of the poem 
here illustrated, is known to be illustrious in the annals of 
Scotland; the ancestors of this noble family have the highest 
claim to celebrity, and are recorded as more distinguished 
by their virtue and merit than by their titles and opulence. 
The lustre of their actions outshines even the splendour of 
their birth. A venerable historian prefaces his account of 
the family with the following couplet, as an incentive to 
emulation : 

" So many, so good, as of the Douglasses have been 
Of one surname, were ne'er in Scotland seene." 

James Lord Douglas, a knight of distinguished renown, 
who has acquired from posterity the title of " The Good," 
also laid the foundation of the greatness of the House of 
Douglas. He was famed for martial enthusiasm, and his 
abhorrence of infidels engaged him in crusades, in which he 
was no less than thirteen times victorious over the Saracens ; 
one of his exploits, which was considered little less glorious 
than a victory, is commemorated in the heraldic insignia 
incidental to the name of Douglas, and familiar to every 

* A very interesting article on this subject, translated from the 
German by W. H. Leeds, appeared in " The Graphic Illustrator," a 
periodical work which merited a better fate than befel it. 



ELLEN AND FITZ-JAMES. 

one; they are thus blazoned in rude metre in the popular 
poem of " Chevy Chase," which was written at least as 
early as the reign of Henry VI. 

" The blodye harte, in the Dowglas' arms, 
His standard stode on hye, 
That every man might full well knowe, 
By syde stode starres three." 

The ancient arms of the family were azure, three stars 
in chief argent: these are still to be seen on several old 
monuments at Piacenza in Italy. James Lord Douglas, 
a constant adherent of King Robert Bruce, undertook a 
journey to Jerusalem with that king's heart, which he 
caused to be interred in the Holy Sepulchre upon Mount 
Calvary, in consequence of a solemn vow he had made to 
the monarch. After this responsible service, the knight 
changed his armorial bearing, and assumed for his coat of 
arms, a white field charged with a man's heart in its proper 
colour, and placed the stars in an azure chief on his shield ; 
but Nisbet the Scottish herald, with some authority tells us 
that the heart of Bruce in the Douglas's arms was not 
ensigned with an imperial crown, as now borne, until some 
ages after the pilgrimage of the good Sir James to the 
Holy Land.* Another peculiarity in the arms of this 
noble family is found in the achievement of James Douglas 
Earl of Angus in the year 1434, which is represented in 
a singular manner, surrounded with the impalement, or 

* Nisbet's Heraldry. Vol. i. p. 70. 



ELLEN AND FITZ-JAMES. 

fence- work of a forest ; it is still borne by the descendants 
of this race. Amongst the armorial quarterings to which 
the Douglases are entitled by marriages with heiresses, are 
the arms of Galloway and Annandale, and when Dukes of 
Touraine, they quartered the arms of that Duchy. 

The connexion of heraldry with the chivalrous exploits 
of the heroes of the middle ages, will always ensure for 
it a portion of that interest which the metrical romances 
of the same period seldom fail to excite ; others, who do not 
very readily comprehend its pleasing variety of form and 
colour, are content to resign its charms, together with the 
follies of romance, as a pursuit fit only for the delight of 
a barbarous and unlettered race, amongst whom a strong 
love of the marvellous prevailed. 

Although the shield of the knight was charged with his 
armorial bearings, by which, together with his crested helmet 
and his emblazoned caparison, he might be readily known in 
the heat of battle, his vavasors, the faithful Highlanders, 
were only furnished with a round target formed of wood, 
and covered with black leather. Steel targets were some- 
times used in the field; but according to an experienced 
judge of these matters, "their weight are such, that few 
men will endure to carie them, if they be of good proofe, 
one houre. I persuade myself the best arming of targetters 
is to have the corselets of reasonable proofe, and the targets 
light, so that the bearers may the better and nimbler 
assaile, and fight the longer in defending." Some fencers 
preferred the shield, as superior in its efficacy to all other 



ELLEN AND FITZ-JAMES. 

weapons of defence, and it is observed that many soldiers 
held it resting on the thigh, while others by bending the 
arm brought it close to the body. One author on the 
subject says, "This weapon is so greatly esteemed of 
princes, lords, and gentlemen, that besides the use thereof 
in their affairs, as well by day as by night, they also keep 
their houses richly decked and beautified therewith ;" thus 
furnishing an early instance of the display of armour on the 
walls of rooms. 



BRIG OF BRACKLINN. 

Wild as Brackliim's thundering wave." 

Lady of the Lake, canto ii. vol. viii. p, 82. 



In the glen betwixt Brackland and Achinlaich, there is a 
bridge on the water of Kelty, consisting of two sticks, 
covered with a few branches of trees and some turf, which 
is abundantly romantic and dangerous. The sticks are laid 
across the chasm with their ends resting on the rocks, which 
project on opposite sides, about fifty feet high, above a 
deep pool. On the one hand, the white cascade pre- 
cipitates itself from a height above the bridge, with a 
tremendous noise, occasioned by the conflict of the rocks, 
the narrowness of the passage, and the lofty column of 
water, whose spray often wets the clothes of the admiring 
spectator. On the other hand, the winding glen, which 
deepens as it descends; the gloominess of the hanging 
rocks, of the shading trees, and black pools, strike with 
terror and with awe. Yet the people of the adjacent farms, 
from the mere force of habit, pass and repass with very 
little concern ; although the very act of looking down, 
when there is a flood in the water, must fill the head of a 




s=3 z 



BRIG OF BRACKLINN. 

stranger with a swimming giddiness, owing to the altitude 
of his situation, the deafening roar of the torrent, the 
gloomy horror of the glen, and the whirling of the pool 
below, into which the cascade falls, rolling, tossing, thun- 
dering down. 

Kelty is a name given to rapid waters, in many parts of 
the world, and in different languages. The name signifies 
the loss and destruction which these torrents, rising so 
suddenly, bring on everything opposed to their course. 
Smooth waters are never called Kelty. There is a Kelty 
in Strathern, and another in Abyssinia. 



DUMFERMLINE. 

"But merrier were they in Dumfermline grey, 
When all the bells were ringing." 

Lady of the Lake, canto iv. vol. viii. p. 183. 



This is generally considered the most ancient relict of 
religious magnificence in Scotland, and was founded as a 
priory by Malcolm Canmore, for monks of the Benedictine 
order. He left it unfinished ; but it was completed by his 
son and successor Alexander I., who dedicated it to the 
Holy Trinity and St. Margaret, the Queen of the original 
founder Malcolm. The abbey was endowed with very 
considerable estates. Among other curious grants made 
to this favoured house, was that of the heads of certain 
fishes, the tongues excepted, supposed to be a small species 
of whale caught in a particular district of the Forth near 
the Abbey church. It was originally a most magnificent 
structure, but it fell a barbarous sacrifice, during the wars 
between England and Scotland in the fourteenth century, 
when it was almost burnt down. 

Some idea may be formed of the extent of its domains, 
since it was found sufficiently capacious to form a residence 
for King Edward I. of England, who wintered here in 
the year 1303. 

The cells which escaped the damages done by the 







rr i ?mm S i ! 



■lady car tj/js i 



' !!■ 1838, by Charges Till , t led Stn 



DUMFERMLINE. 

English, were destroyed by the reformers in 1560, and 
the ruins now remaining are very inconsiderable — a window 
belonging to the Frater Hall still remains, which displays 
considerable beauty. The church is of great antiquity, 
undoubtedly forming part of the magnificent structure 
erected by Malcolm Canmore. It resembles the cathedral 
of Durham, is very capacious, but is unfortunately left in 
a state of neglect, too common with similar remains, and a 
matter of reproach from which England is not entirely 
free : a better spirit seems, however, reviving ; and as we 
do not venture on erecting structures that can compare 
with the efforts of our ancestors, let us hope that a general 
and decided step will be taken to prevent further decay. 
The church formed a place of sepulture for the ancient 
royal family of Scotland ; in it were interred the remains 
of the founder, his Queen St. Margaret, and other Scottish 
monarchs. But the wild fury of Knox and his associates 
destroyed the principal parts of this stately fabric, and 
the royal monuments suffered in the desolation. 

In the church also is the tomb of Robert Pitcairn, Com- 
mendator of Dumfermline, Secretary of State in the begin- 
ning of the reign of James VI. in the regency of Lenox. 
He was of Morton's faction, and was sent to the court of 
Elizabeth to solicit the delivery of Mary Stuart into 
the hands of the king's party. He attended James in his 
imprisonment, after the Raid of Ruthven, and artfully en- 
deavoured to make friends with each side. Notwithstand- 
ing the praises bestowed upon him in his epitaph, tradition 

M 



DUMFERMLINE. 

says he did not escape the tongue of detraction ; to which 

the following inscription, over the door of his house in the 

May-gate, is said to allude — 

" Sen word is thrall, and Thocht is free, 
Keip veil thy tonge I counsell the :" 

he was accused of incontinence. 

In the palace of Dumfermline, was born the unfortunate 
Charles I. The nuptial bed of his mother, Anne of Den- 
mark, which she is reported to have brought with her 
from Denmark, was about the latter end of the last century 
in the possession of an innkeeper at Dumfermline. For 
this piece of royal furniture, Mrs. Walker, the landlady, 
a zealous Jacobite, entertained a very high veneration. 
Bishop Pocock of Ireland, happened to be at her house, 
and having seen the bed, offered her fifty guineas for it ; 
which she refused, telling him that she still retained so 
great a reverence for the two royal personages whose 
property it was, and who slept in it when they resided 
here, and to their posterity, that all the gold and silver was 
not fit to buy it. Some time before her death, Mrs. 
Walker made a present of the queen's bed to the Earl 
of Elgin. It was made of walnut-tree of curious work- 
manship, and ornamented with several very antique figures 
neatly carved. 

In the library of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, is 
a copy of St. Jerome's Bible in MS. beautifully illuminated, 
said to have been used in the great church at Dumfermline 
in the reign of David I. 







ED BY H.C.SHEf 



- 

| 



; HARLES TILT. FLEET SI F Li- 



THE KNIGHT OF SNOWDOUN. 

" 'T is under name which veils my power ? — 
Nor falsely veils, — for Stirling's tower 
Of yore the name of Snowdoun claims." 

Lady of the Lake, vol. viii. p. 295. 



None of the royal palaces of Scotland appear to have been 
more favoured by the successive princes of the House of 
Stuart, than the Castle of Stirling, which crowns the hill 
so admirably, and commands a view of immense extent, in 
which mountainous magnificence, beauty of woods and 
plains, rugged rocks, and winding waters, form a scene 
almost unequalled for variety. By some of the earlier 
Scottish writers, Stirling Castle has been called Snowdoun ; 
an appellation supposed to have been derived from a 
romantic legend which connected Stirling with King 
Arthur, and received countenance from a mound within 
the adjacent park, known by the name of the Round Table 
as early as the days of Barbour, the cotemporary of Gower 
and Chaucer. 

Sir David Lindsay, the Lion King, who was the youthful 
playfellow of King James V., apostrophizes Stirling by the 
same romantic name : 

" Adieu, fair Snowdoun, with thy towers high, 
Thy chapel royal, park, and table round." 



THE KNIGHT OF SNOWDOUN. 

The fondness of the Scottish nobility for architectural 
splendour was so remarkable that it has been mentioned as 
a national characteristic, and the feeling seems always to 
have been hereditary in the line of the monarchs. 

King James I., who began his reign in the year 1406, 
was familiar with the situation of Windsor Castle during 
his captivity in England, and the resemblance which Stir- 
ling is thought to bear to Windsor, is considered to have 
been the origin of the preference which James bestowed on 
this very delightful residence. The oldest parts of the 
building, which rise on the extremity of the ridge, are 
undoubtedly of this reign ; they bear few traces of their 
original splendour, but are interesting as connected with 
the character of the feudal ages, and as a picturesque em- 
bellishment of the admired scenery. His grandson, King 
James III., made many considerable additions to the castle, 
particularly to the hall; but the most attractive feature of 
the present remains of Stirling Castle, is that part of 
the palace erected by King James V. about the year 1530, 
during the prevalence of a taste for magnificent architecture. 
No other part of the castle, indeed, will bear a comparison 
with this, for its sumptuous decoration. 

One of the principal apartments of this quadrangular 
building is called the King's Room, or Presence, and is 
enriched on the exterior with numerous statues in the gor- 
geous and fanciful costume of the period ; one of which is 
considered to bear a strong resemblance to the monarch 
himself. These figures are all executed with the masterly 



THE KNIGHT OF SNOWDOUN. 

freedom of the Florentine school, and worked with extraor- 
dinary care. 

It was from one of the panels of the interior of this 
elegant apartment that the portrait of the King, in the 
plate, was derived. The ceiling of the room was originally 
composed of singular specimens of carving in oak, in very 
large compartments : a careful examination of these panels 
has induced a belief that the subjects represented were not 
ideal, but that each head was intended by the artist for the 
individual portrait of some distinguished personage at the 
court of James V. 

The whole of this enriched ceiling was pulled down at 
the time the room was converted into an additional barrack 
for the soldiers of the garrison, and little is now left to 
indicate its former grandeur. The large panels were almost 
immediately dispersed amongst a variety of persons, and no 
drawing having been made of the general design, it is 
impossible to obtain a correct knowledge of their relative 
situations. 

It would have been very desirable to have known the 
arrangement of the panels on the ceiling, as that might, in 
all probability, have thrown a light on the persons intended 
in the several carvings. Nearly forty of the panels are yet 
extant; but the disappearance of almost all the painted 
historical portraits of that age prevents the possibility of 
discovering, in every case, the personage the carver might 
have had in view. In some instances this has been accom- 
plished; as in the case of the more prominent persons of the 



THE KNIGHT OF SNOWDOUN. 

Scottish court, whose features are well known, in conse- 
quence of the existence of cotemporary pictures by painters 
of talent. 

The carved head whence our print is taken, bears the 
closest resemblance to the portrait of King James V. in the 
rare book entitled, Inscriptiones Historicce Return Scotorum, 
published in 1602, by John Johnston, the king's professor 
of divinity at the university of St. Andrew's. The features 
of the monarch are of precisely the same cast, although more 
regular in the carving than in Johnston's print; the cap 
and the whole character of the costume are exactly similar. 
King James, according to the best authorities, was in his 
person of the middle size, elegant and majestic ; and 
although strong and athletic, of a graceful behaviour. His 
face was oval, his eyes blue, his nose aquiline, and his hair 
yellow ; his features were handsome, if his gold coins faith- 
fully represent them ; these, of the finest workmanship then 
extant in Europe, have seldom, even since, been excelled. 
King James V. was the first of the sovereigns of his family 
that suffered his beard to grow, — his was forked. It has 
been remarked as a singularity in the state of the arts at 
this period, that although his money is of so fine an 
execution, one of his great seals (for he had two) is miserably 
engraved. 

The original carving here represented is in the pos- 
session of John Crawford, Esq. of Leith. The portrait is 
within a garland of oak, the leaves of which are tastefully 
displayed in a circle. Besides the ancient Order of the 



THE KNIGHT OF SNOWDOUN. 

Thistle peculiar to Scotland, King James V. was graced 
with the Orders of St. George, the Golden Fleece, and St. 
Michael. The mottos and other ornaments, introduced as 
a characteristic frame-work of the portrait, have reference 
to the poem in the scene with Fitz-James, upon Ellen 
Douglas' introduction to court : 

"And Snowdoun's knight is Scotland's king." 

Another of the heads introduced in the panelling of this 
highly ornamental ceiling, is said to be a close representa- 
tion of Mary of Guise, whom King James V. married in 
1537, after the death of his first queen, Magdalen; the 
carving is considered to bear a remarkable resemblance to 
an original picture of that princess in the gallery of his 
Grace the Duke of Devonshire. She was no less beautiful 
than her daughter, the celebrated Mary Queen of Scots. 
This panel is in the possession of General Graham. 

The borders of these portraits, in imitation of vegetable 
forms, abound in exuberance of fancy and variety of elegant 
delineation ; they will bear comparison with the beautiful 
arabesques of Italy ; and the tasteful workmanship, as well 
as the spirit of the designs, entitle them to admiration, 
without taking into view the period at which they were 
produced. 

The art of carving in wood was familiar to the early 
artists of every country ; and in many of the other heads 
belonging to this ceiling, which were saved from de- 
struction, there is found an elegance of attitude, a delicacy 



THE KNIGHT OF SNOWDOUN. 

of expression, and an air of high breeding, shewing clearly 
that it is a mistake to suppose that Scotland in the age of 
James V. was destitute of perception and feeling for the 
best and most rare qualities with which the art at any 
period can be endowed. 

Thirty-eight of the series of Scottish portraits have been 
engraved in a folio volume published at Edinburgh in the 
year 1817, entitled, " Hacimar Stretielinense : a collection of 
Heads, after the carved work which formerly decorated the 
roof of the King's room in Stirling Castle." In this Book 
a very particular account of the curious and costly embel- 
lishments of this splendid ancient apartment will be found. 



EGGLISTON. 

" Eggleston's gray ruins." 

Rokeby, canto ii. vol. ix. p. 81, 



Eggliston, says Whitaker, is distinguished by the beau- 
tiful though not magnificent remains of a Prsemonstraten- 
sian Priory, standing on the brink of a steep and lofty 
brow, at the juncture of the Tees with Thorgill, extremely 
resembling a site which would have been chosen for a 
Roman station. Immediately beneath, that broad and rapid 
stream rolls over a bed of grey limestone, which, according 
to Leland, was in his time wrought as a marble quarry, and 
from which unquestionably most of the ponderous and 
gigantic tombs yet remaining in the churches of Rich- 
mondshire have been extracted. 

Of Eggliston Priory the church is almost yet entire. It 
is a monastic building, adapted to the revenues of the 
foundation, and therefore, in point of extent and style, not 
above the third order. It is a regular cross, but without 
aisles ; forty-five paces within from east to west, and thirty 
in the line of the transept from north to south. Having 
had no aisles, it has, in consequence, been deprived of the 
ornament of columns. Another disadvantage, which arises 
from the declivity of the ground is, that a steep descent 



EGGLISTON. 

takes place to the altar. The whole outline appears to be 
of the original fabric, and several of the first lancet lights 
remain; but the wide yawning east window, supported, 
instead of ramified tracery, by perpendicular mullions, 
which give an impression of temporary props erected to 
sustain a falling arch, is a singular deformity. Of this 
design, so unhappily and tastelessly conceived, I have only 
seen one other specimen; yet it has not escaped the 
gothicness of the present day, who, in their neglect of 
better things, have not failed to copy the east window of 
Eggliston. It is greatly to be regretted, says the same 
authority, that from its distance these ruins could not have 
been comprehended within the park and grounds of Rokeby; 
but they are capable, at a moderate expense, of being 
rendered more pleasing as the object of a visit — of being 
restored to that silence, sequestration, and neatness, which 
was their original character. 

Its name is supposed to have been derived from Aikhel- 
ston (the town of the hill covered with oaks), which is the 
character of the scenery. It is believed to have been 
founded by Ralph de Multon, in the latter end of the reign 
of King Henry the Second, or the beginning of that of 
Richard the First. The Lord Dacres, who married the 
heiress of the Multons, was patron of this house at the 
dissolution. 

A mutilated statue of an abbot, removed from the abbey, 
is preserved on Mr. Morritt's grounds. 



GLEN OF THE GRETA. 

" The open vale is soon pass'd o'er, 
Rokeby, though nigh, is seen no more, 
Sinking mid Greta's thickets deep, 
A wilder and darker course they keep, 
A stern and lone, yet lovely road 
As e'er the foot of minstrel trode." 

Rokeby, canto ii. vol. ix. p. 85. 



The Greta finds a passage between Rokeby and Mortham; 
the former situated upon the left bank of Greta, the latter 
on the right bank, about half a mile nearer to its junction 
with the Tees. The river runs with very great rapidity 
over a bed of solid rock, broken by many shelving descents, 
down which the stream dashes with great noise and impetu- 
osity, vindicating its etymology, which has been derived 
from the Gothic, gridan, to clamour. The banks partake 
of the same wild and romantic character, being chiefly lofty 
cliffs of limestone rock, whose grey colour contrasts admir- 
ably with the various trees and shrubs which find root 
among their crevices, as well as with the hue of the ivy, 
which clings around them in profusion, and hangs down 
from their projections in long sweeping tendrils. At other 
points, the rocks give place to precipitous banks of earth, 



GLEN OF THE GRETA. 

bearing large trees intermingled with copsewood. In one 
spot, the dell, which is elsewhere very narrow, widens for a 
space to leave room for a dark grove of yew trees, inter- 
mixed here and there with aged pines of uncommon size. 
Directly opposite to this sombre thicket, the cliffs on the 
other side of the Greta are tall, white, and fringed with all 
kinds of deciduous shrubs. The whole scenery of this spot 
is so much adapted to the ideas of superstition, that it has 
acquired the name of Blockhula, from the place where the 
Swedish witches were supposed to hold their sabbath. 
The dell, however, has superstitions of its own growth ; for 
it is supposed to be haunted by a female spectre, called the 
Dobie of Mortham. The cause assigned for her appear- 
ance is a lady's having been whilom murdered in the wood ; 
in evidence of which, her blood is shewn upon the stairs of 
the old tower at Mortham. But whether she was slain by 
a jealous husband, or by savage banditti, or by an uncle 
who coveted her estate, or by a rejected lover, are points 
upon which the traditions of Rokeby do not enable us to 
decide. 

A short walk from the residence of the proprietor of this 
delightful domain, leads to a modern bridge over the Greta, 
and to an apartment placed on the brink of the rock, and 
said to have been painted by the hand of Mason, from 
which all the outrages of this dreadful torrent may be 
contemplated in perfect security, though it sometimes 
washes the foundation of the building above thirty feet 
perpendicular from the channel. When the writer of these 



GLEN OF THE GRETA. 

notes * saw it, in tranquillity, a marble bed, over which a 
clear and lively mountain-stream hurried to the Tees, deep 
and abrupt crags to right and left, and aged over-hanging 
woods, as various in their forms as their species, formed the 
character of the scene. On the whole, it most resembles 
the stupendous termination of the Croglin in Cumberland ; 
but the channel of the Greta is wider, less contorted, less 
abrupt, and the rocks not of equal depth to those of Cum- 
berland ; but in the solemnity and antiquity of the woods, 
which darken the Greta, it has greatly the advantage. 
Immense masses also of limestone, which even in their 
native beds have much the effect of marble, dignify the 
whole scene, and afford a much finer colouring than the 
brickdust hue of the Cumberland rocks. 

On the whole, the several features of Rokeby and 
Mortham, combining the union of the Tees and Greta, 
with their rocks, and native woods; the venerable but 
almost disappearing fragments of the old parish church, 
with the gravestones just peeping above the greensward; 
the memory of the brave, the pious, the spirited family, 
whose residence so long animated the scene; the Roman 
station, partly within the park, and the near prospect of 
Egglistone Abbey, with which in life and death the 
Rokebys were so nearly connected, must be allowed to 
constitute, in the eye of taste or in the exercise of recol- 
lection, one of the most enchanting residences in the North 
of England. 

* Dr. Whitaker. 



MATILDA. 

Rokeby, vol. ix. p. 170. 



" Wreathed in its dark-brown rings, her hair 
Half hid Matilda's forehead fair, 
Half hid, and half revealed to view 
Her full dark eye of hazel hue. 
The rose, with faint and feeble streak, 
So slightly tinged the maiden's cheek, 
That you had said her hue was pale ; 
But if she faced the summer gale, 
Or spoke, or sung, or quicker moved, 
Or heard the praise of those she loved,— 
Or when if interest was expressed, 
Aught that waked feeling in her breast, 
The mantling blood, in ready play, 
Rivalled the blush of rising day. 
There was a soft and pensive grace, 
A cast of thought upon her face, 
That suited well the forehead high, 
The eye-lash dark, and downcast eye ; 
The mild expression spoke a mind 
In duty firm, composed, resigned." 







Lov.. 



BARNARD CASTLE. 

" Old Barnard's towers are purple still, 
To those that gaze from Toller Hill." 

Rolceby, canto v. vol. ix. p. 207. 



" Barnard Castle," saith old Leland, " standeth stately 
upon Tees." It is founded upon a very high bank, and 
its ruins impend over the river, including within the area 
a circuit of six acres and upwards. This once magnificent 
fortress derives its name from its founder, Barnard Baliol, 
the ancestor of the short and unfortunate dynasty of that 
name, which succeeded to the Scottish throne under the 
patronage of Edward I. and Edward III. Baliol's tower, 
afterwards mentioned in the poem, is a round tower of 
great size, situated at the western extremity of the build- 
ing. It bears marks of great antiquity, and was remarkable 
for the curious construction of its vaulted roof, which has 
been lately greatly injured by the operations of some 
persons to whom the tower has been leased, for the purpose 
of making patent shot. The prospect from the top of 
Baliol's tower commands a rich and magnificent view of 
the Tees. 

It stands upon an eminence about eighty feet perpen- 
dicular above the river, amidst some of the wildest and 



BARNARD CASTLE. 

most beautiful landscape scenery in the kingdom. The rapid 
river, buried within deep rocks and steep wooded banks, 
almost encircles the ancient town, and dashes through the 
bridge beneath the walls of the castle ; Leland says, " The 
Castelle of Barnard standeth stately upon Tese ; the first 
area hath no very notable thing in it, but the fair chapelle, 
where be two cantuaries. In the middle of the body of 
this chapelle, is a fair marble tumbe, with an image and an 
inscription about it in French. Ther is another in the 
south waul of the body of the chapelle, of frestone, with an 
image of the same ; sum say that they were of the Bail- 
liolles. The inner area is very large, and partly moted, 
and welle furnished with toures of great logging. Ther 
belong two parks to this castelle; the one is caullid Mar- 
wood, and therby is a chase, that bereth also the name of 
Marwood, and that goeth on Tese Ripe unto Tesedale." 
It was then in possession of the crown; but in 1635, Sir 
Henry Vane, cofferer to the king, obtained from Charles 
I. a grant of free-warren, with the offices of master forester 
and chief warden of all forests and chases within the demesne 
of Barnard Castle, for him and his heirs. From him 
descended Christopher Vane, who was created Lord Bar- 
nard in 1699 : one of the titles of the present noble owner 
the Duke of Cleveland. The remains of the castle cover 
six acres and three quarters of ground. The western side 
of the court contained the state chambers ; over an oriel 
window, in one of which, is the cognizance of a boar. 
Adjoining these apartments, on the north-west corner of 



BARNARD CASTLE. 

the fortress, is a circular tower, with the stairs channelled in 
the wall. 

In the Flats, the adjoining grounds, is a large reservoir, 
called the Ever : water was collected, and conveyed there in 
pipes, to supply the garrison and cattle, inclosed within 
the walls of the outer areas, in times of public danger. 
The outer area of the castle is now used as a pasture for 
sheep, and other parts inclosed by the walls have been 
converted into orchard ground. Many portions of the 
ruin are covered with ivy, and present very fine views, 
particularly from the south bank of the river. 

The area on the side of the market-place appears not to 
have had any communication with the chief strong-holds 
and bulwarks of the fortress, and is separated from the 
interior buildings by a deep fosse, which surrounds the 
rest of the castle. This area is fenced with a high wall 
along the edge of the rocks behind Brig-gate. The gate- 
way to the Flats, opens from a large area to the ancient 
road, which communicated with the ford. This area, 
together with that before described, was anciently used 
to receive the cattle of the adjacent country, in times 
of invasion and public danger. The gateway is defended 
by a demi-bastion, and the broken walls shew appearances 
of maskings and out-works. At a turn of the wall south- 
ward was a tower, which flanked the wall towards the gate, 
from which, over the fosse, was a drawbridge. This area 
contains the remains of some edifices, one of which was 
called Brackenbury's tower. The chief strong-holds stand 

o 



BARNARD CASTLE. 

on more elevated ground than any within the areas 
described; they were surrounded by a dry ditch, or 
covered way, with small gateways through the intersect- 
ing walls : this ditch is terminated on one hand by a sally- 
port that commanded the bridge to the west : and on the 
other by a sally-port to the north ; the covered way almost 
surrounding the inner fortress. The area, in which the 
chief erections were arranged, is almost circular ; the build- 
ings are of different seras. Northward, the walls are of 
modern and superior architecture, supported by strong 
buttresses, and defended by a square turret towards the 
east : to the south, the wall appears very ancient and thick, 
and has been strengthened by trains, or lines of large oak 
beams, disposed in tiers in the centre of the wall at equal 
distances, so as to render it firm against battering engines. 
The west side of the area contained the principal apartments; 
the state rooms stood in this quarter : two large painted 
windows, looking upon the river, seem to be the most 
modern ; together with a bow window, hung on corbies in 
the upper ceiling: here is the figure of a boar passant, 
relieved and in good preservation. Adjoining these apart- 
ments, is a circular tower of excellent masonry, in ashler 
work, having a vault, the roof of which is plain, without 
ribs or central pillar. This vault is thirty feet in diameter ; 
the stairs of the ascent to the upper apartments are chan- 
nelled in the wall. 



HALL AT ROKEBY. 

Then as he crossed the vaulted porch 
The old grey porter raised his torch, 
And viewed him o'er from foot to head, 
Ere to the hall his steps he led." 

Rokeby, canto v. vol. ix. p. 211. 



The view which the artist has painted in illustration of this 
passage, is entirely fictitious, although no doubt the eminent 
poet had the residence of the Rokebys of Mortham in his 
mind at the time the passage was written. 

Mortham is an embattled house, the residence of the 
Rokebys after their ancient inheritance was sold, till some 
of the ordinary causes of decay in ancient families, com- 
pelled them to alienate this their last stake. Their arms 
still appear on the exterior, and on a wall within. The 
pile was probably erected about the reign of Henry VII., 
a true Border mansion, with all the peculiar features of that 
era and rank of domestic architecture ; — a thorough lobby, 
kitchens to the left hand, with arched doors out of the 
lobby to the butteries ; a hall on the right hand up to the 
roof, and a handsome tower beyond the hall. At one end 
is a bamekyn inclosure, for the nightly protection of the 
castle from depredators, strongly walled about with stone. 



HALL AT ROKEBY. 

To a field on the south, has been conveyed the immense 
tombstone, of Greta or Tees marble, mentioned by Leland, 
and removed within memory, from Eggliston Abbey. 

From the Felon Sow,* it is evident that the Rokebys 
were resident at Mortham in the reign of Henry VII., and 
it does not seem probable that they ever returned to 
Rokeby, as the Robinsons were certainly possessed of it 
in the earlier part of the following century. The present 
tower may, with the greatest probability, be ascribed to 
Ralph Rokeby, who is there mentioned. 



* This singular specimen of early English poetry is printed in Mr. 
Evans' Collection of Ballads, and another version of it in the Appendix 
to Rokebv. 



THE TOMB OF ROKEBY. 

" The civil fury of the time 

Made sport of sacrilegious crime ; 
For dark fanaticism rent 

Altar, and screen, and ornament ; 
And peasant hands the tombs o'erthrew 
Of Bowes, of Rokeby, and Fitzhugh." 

RoJceby, canto vi. vol. ix. p. 290. 



The general neglect into which the ecclesiastical edifices of 
the kingdom had fallen after the Reformation, gave rise to 
the proverb, that "Pater Noster built churches, but Our 
Father pulls them down;" an observation rendered more 
striking by the desecration of the Puritans, committed 
under the authority of parliament, in the reign of Charles 
the First. A great many of our finest churches, amidst 
relics of ecclesiastical antiquity, bear evidence of having 
been denuded by puritanical sacrilege ; and Dr. Whitaker, 
a very learned antiquary, in his " History of Craven," 
deplores that " without the aid of the press, posterity, and 
no very late posterity, will be at a loss to know what parish 
churches once were." 

The principal ornaments of the ancient church, against 
which the fury of misplaced zeal was first directed, were its 
painted glass, its enriched rood-loft and chancel-screen, its 



THE TOMB OF ROKEBY. 

shrines and solemn altar, together with the venerable font, 
and elegant stalls. These objects having been removed, 
popular indignation was excited against the altar-tombs, 
and recumbent figures of the Anglo-Norman sera ; the rich 
brasses, contemporary with the Edwards and Henrys; and 
the kneeling forms of alabaster, coloured to the life, which 
distinguish the worthies of Elizabeth's reign. 

Bruno Ryves, in " The Country's Complaint," &c. has 
given a most lamentable account of the profanation which the 
Cathedral of Exeter underwent about this time. " Over 
the communion-table was written the holy and blessed 
name of Jesus, this they expunge as superstitious and exe- 
crable ; on each side of the Commandments the pictures of 
Moses and Aaron were drawn in full proportion, these they 

deface." " They made the church their storehouse where 

they placed their ammunition and powder, and planted a 
court of guard to attend it, who used the church with the 
same reverence as they would an alehouse. They break 
and deface all the glass windows of the church, which 
cannot be replaced for many hundred pounds, and left all 
those ancient monuments, being painted glass, and contain- 
ing matter of history only, a memorable spectacle of com- 
miseration to all well affected hearts that beheld them. 
They struck off the heads of the statues on all monu- 
ments in the church, especially they deface the bishops' 
tombs, leaving one without a head, and another without an 
arm. They pluck down and deface the statue of an ancient 
queen, the wife of Edward the Confessor, the first founder 



THE TOMB OF ROKEBY. 

of the church, mistaking it for that of the Virgin Mary, 
the mother of God. They brake down the organs, and 
taking two or three hundred pipes with them, in a most 
scornful and contemptuous manner, went up and down the 
street piping with them, and meeting some of the choris- 
ters, whose surplices they had stolen before, scoffingly told 
them, e Boys, we have spoiled your trade, you must go and 
sing hot pudding pies.' Great, and in many instances, 
irreparable injury was at this time done to the cathedrals by 
the fanatical sectarians and iconoclasts, and it was thus that 
the venerable monuments of the taste, munificence, and 
piety of our ancestors were mutilated or destroyed. 

The Lord and Commons in Parliament ordained, that in 
all churches and chapels the altar tables of stone should, 
before the first of November, 1643, be utterly taken away 
and demolished, and that all rails which had been erected 
before any altar should be taken away. They also ordered 
that all tapers, candlesticks, and basins be removed, and all 
crucifixes, crosses, images, and pictures of any one or more 
persons of the sanctity, or of the Virgin Mary, and all 
images or pictures of saints, or superstitious inscriptions, 
should be taken away and defaced. 

The journal of William Dowsing is preserved, and 
exhibits a curious list of objects destroyed in the county of 
Suffolk. He was one of the parliamentary visitors, ap- 
pointed under a warrant from the Earl of Manchester, for 
demolishing the superstitious ornaments of churches in that 
county. In St. Margaret's church, Ipswich, the window- 



THE TOMB OF ROKEBY. 

breaking* visitors, as they were popularly called, took down 
the twelve Apostles in stone, and ordered between twenty 
and thirty pictures to be removed. At the beautiful little 
church of Ufford, in the same county, the journalists say, 
" We broke twelve cherubims on the roof of the chancel, 
and we broke down the organ cases and gave them to the 
poor. In the church there was on the roof above a hun- 
dred little Jesus's and Marias in great capital letters, and a 
crosier staff to break down in glass, and above twenty stars 
in the roof. There is a glorious cover over the font, like a 
Pope's triple crown, with a pelican on the top picking its 
breast, all gilt over with gold." The cover to the font is 
still in being ; these men, armed as they were with autho- 
rity, could not persuade themselves to destroy so elegant an 
ornament, not even its resemblance to the Pope's crown. 
It is, perhaps, the only object that gives any idea of the 
former magnificence of the church at Ufford. 

At Westminster Abbey, the office of demolishing the 
monuments of superstition was intrusted to Henry Marten, 
(afterwards the notorious regicide), who is recorded by 
Anthony Wood to have broken open the iron chest in 
which the regalia was deposited, and to have arrayed George 
Withers, the well known poet and satirist, in the regal 
habiliments, from feelings of contempt and scorn for 
royalty. 

The ancient screens, by which the several chapels were 
divided from the body of the larger churches, were some- 
times glazed, but always open so as to afford a view of the 



THE TOMB OF ROKEBY. 

purest offeratory at the altar within, while the people knelt 
in the area without. The chancel screen was a more 
necessary part of the arrangement, being intended for the 
protection of the congregation from the wind that pene- 
trated the open parts of the building. These were generally 
constructed of wood, and were richly painted and gilt. 
The chancel screen of Hexham church exhibited the cele- 
brated " Dance of Death," accompanied by verses describ- 
ing the different characters* 



ALHAMBRA. 

" Grenada caught it in her Moorish hall." 

Vision of Don Roderick, vol. ix. p. 398. 



This celebrated memorial of the taste and splendour of the 
Moorish dominion in Spain, was commenced by King 
Emir Alumnemin, and finished by Muley Hassem. 

Over the door of the immense hall is an inscription, in 
Arabic and Spanish, of which the following is a translation : 
" Turn pale, O wickedness ! wheresoever you go, I will 
follow ! Punishment always speedily follows crime ! Draw 
near, come without fear, ye deserted orphans ! here ye shall 
find the fathers you have lost." 

The part of this stupendous monument of Moorish 
grandeur here represented, is the court and fountain of 
lions, an oblong square, one hundred feet in length and fifty 
in breadth, surrounded by a corridor of one hundred and 
twenty-eight columns, that support the arches, on which 
rest the upper apartments of this enchanting palace. A 
beautiful portico, not unlike the portals of some Gothic 
churches, projects into this court at each extremity; the 
stuccoed ceiling of which is executed with equal perfection 
and elegance. The colonnade is paved with white marble, 



ALHAMBRA. 

and the slender pillars themselves are of the same material. 
They are disposed very irregularly, being sometimes single, 
and other times in pairs, or clusters of three ; but the mag- 
nificent coup cTceil of the whole is particularly pleasing to 
the eye of the astonished visitor. The columns are about 
nine feet high, including the base and capital, and eight 
inches and a half in diameter; the larger crescent arches 
above them are four feet two inches in width, and the 
smaller arches are three feet wide. To the height of five 
feet from the ground, the walls are ornamented with a 
beautiful yellow and blue Mosaic tiling, with a border con- 
taining the often repeated sentence, " There is no conqueror 
but God," in blue and gold. The capitals of the pillars 
vary in their designs, each of which is very frequently 
repeated in the circumference of the court, but not the least 
attention has been paid to placing them regularly or opposite 
each other. 

The arches are frequently ornamented with a great 
variety of tastefully designed and exquisitely finished 
arabesques, in which no trace of animal or vegetable life is 
to be found, and which are surmounted with the usual 
inscriptions ; and above these arches, an elegantly finished 
cornice runs round the whole court. In the centre of the 
court stands the celebrated fountain, whence it derives its 
name. " Here," says a popular writer, " the hand of time 
has fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish elegance 
and splendour exist in almost their original brilliancy. 
Earthquakes have shaken the foundations of the pile, and 



ALHAMBRA. 

rent its widest towers; yet see! not one of those slender 
columns has been displaced, not an arch of that light and 
fragile colonnade has given way, and all the fairy fret-work 
of these domes, apparently as unsubstantial as the crystal 
fabrics of a morning's frost, yet exist after the lapse of 
centuries, almost as fresh as if from the hands of the Moslem 
artist. Every thing here appears calculated to inspire kind 
and happy feelings, for every thing is delicate and beautiful. 
The very light falls tenderly from above, through the lantern 
of a dome tinted and wrought as if by fairy hands. The 
lively swallow dives into the court, and then soaring upwards, 
darts away twittering over the roofs ; the busy bee toils 
humming among the flower beds, and painted butterflies 
hover from plant to plant, and flutter up and sport with 
each other in the sunny air." 



10NA. 



" In Iona's piles. 



Where rest from mortal coil the mighty of the Isles." 

Lord of the Isles, canto i. vol. x. p. 21. 



" Iona," says Dr. Johnson, "has long enjoyed, without 
any very credible attestation, the honour of being reputed 
the cemetery of the Scottish kings. It is not unlikely that, 
when the opinion of local sanctity was prevalent, the chief- 
tains of the isles, or perhaps some of the Norwegian or 
Irish princes, were deposited in this venerable enclosure." 
The effect which the visit to this island, had on the great 
moralist, is expressed in language so beautiful, that no 
apology can be necessary for introducing it here. " We 
were now treading that illustrious island, which was once 
the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage 
clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of know- 
ledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind 
from all local emotions would be impossible, if it were 
endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. 
Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, 
whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predo- 
minate over the present, advances us in the dignity of 
thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, 
be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent 



IONA. 

and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified 
by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be 
envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the 
plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
among the ruins of Iona" 

The religious edifices, of which the ruins now only 
remain, were established by St. Columba, about the year 
565, who left Ireland, his native country, with the intention 
of preaching Christianity to the Picts. He was born of 
the highest rank in Ireland : during four and thirty years 
of active benevolence, he continued to send out pastors to 
inform the ignorant, and to compose the hasty disputes of 
ragged chieftains. The remains of this excellent man were 
removed by Kenneth, in the year 849, to Dunkeld, where 
a church was built, and dedicated to his memory. The 
ruins are much dilapidated, and the disgraceful state which 
recent travellers describe them as exhibiting, is a reproach 
to those whose duty it is to look after the preservation of 
our national antiquities. 

The Cathedral is thirty-eight yards in length, and eight 
in breadth, and the length of the transept, is twenty-four 
yards. The east window is a beautiful specimen of Gothic 
architecture: the pillars are all in different styles; but 
their capitals are ornamented with Scripture pieces, and the 
most grotesque figures. The tower is about seventy feet 
high, divided into three stories. It is lighted, on one side, 
above by a plain slab, perforated by quatre-foils, and on 
the other by a catherine-wheel window, with spiral mullions. 



IONA. 

It stands on four cylindrical pillars of clumsy Norman 
design, about ten feet high, and three in diameter. With 
respect to its claim for the resting-place of the ancient 
Scottish monarchs, Dr. Maculloch observes, "Every one 
relates the story of the forty-eight kings of Iona, down to 
Pennant and Cordiner, and from them down to us, without 
hesitation or inquiry, as if it were at least possible, if not 
true. But with all the nonsense that has been written on 
this subject, there is a mixture of truth ; as it is evident, no 
less from the number of ancient stones, than from the 
remains of sculpture and inscription, that Iona was a place 
of great posthumous resort, at least for the chiefs of the 
Isles, even down to a late period. Some of the stones are 
finely carved with knots and vegetable ornaments, and with 
recumbent warriors and other emblems; but the greater 
number are plain. Yet if personages of such high note as 
kings, whether Scottish or Irish, or even Norwegian 
Viceroys, or Sea-kings had been buried here in numbers, 
we ought to have found something in the nature of testi- 
monial sculpture or inscription; whereas there is nothing. 
" There is little doubt, however," says Dr. Macculloch, 
" that Duncan's body was carried to this, the sacred store- 
house of his predecessors, and guardian of his bones." 

Iona, the Island of Waves, is about three miles long, and 
where widest, only one in breadth. The highest elevation 
is about live hundred feet, and the surface is divided with 
rocky hillocks and patches of green pasture, or of moory 
and boggy soil. At the southern extremity, with the 



IONA. 

exception of a low sandy tract near Bloody Bay, it is a mere 
labyrinth of rocks. It is separated from Mull by a narrow 
sound ; and the western coast is beset by numerous rocks 
and small islands, among which Soa is the most conspicuous. 
The Bay of Martyrs is a small creek near the village, and 
is said to be the place where the corpses brought hither for 
interment were landed. Port na Currach, the Bay of the 
Boat, lies on the opposite site of the island. Here, it is 
said, Columba first landed from Ireland ; and a heap of 
about fifty feet in length, is supposed to be a model and a 
memorial of his boat. But it is the antiquarian and moral 
history of Iona which constitutes its greatest interest. It is 
not very creditable to those who might have done it long- 
since, that Iona, the Star of the Western Ocean, the 
luminary of roving barbarians, the day-spring to savage 
Caledonia, should so long have remained an object for wan- 
dering tourists to tell of, unhonoured, undescribed by those 
who owe it a deep debt of civilization, of letters, and of 
religion. If time can now take nothing more from those 
written records, to which it cannot add, yet it is making 
daily, hourly attacks on that, which it is the duty of the 
pencil and the graver to preserve from perishing before it 
be too late. Not to enumerate all the advantages which a 
country derives from the visits of tourists, fifty years ago 
Mr. Pennant could not see the tombs of Iona without wading 
through what a Hindoo would have considered peculiarly 
appropriate. It could not then be said that they were 
" lying naked to the injuries of stormy weather." The 



IONA. 

native is no longer allowed to stable his stirks in chapel and 
hall. They quote here a proverb of St. Columba, " that 
where there is a cow there must be a woman, and where 
there is a woman there must be mischief," which was the 
sufficient reason why the Saint banished his nuns to a 
maritime outpost near Mull. Pennant deserves equal 
credit for having banished the cows; who, in defiance of 
the Saint's ingenious corollary, had excluded the nuns out 
of dormitory, chapel and all; converting them into one 
dirty and boggy " vaccisterium." It is not probable that 
there is a single fragment remaining of the original building. 
Judging merely by style, St. Oran's Chapel ought to be 
the oldest, the Nunnery Chapel the next, and the Cathedral 
the latest. 



EDITH. 

Lord of the Isles, canto i, vol. x. p. 25 



" Retired her maiden train among, 
Edith of Lorn received the song, 
But tamed the minstrel's pride had been 
That had her cold demeanour seen ; 
For not upon her cheek awoke 
The glow of pride when Flattery spoke, 
Nor could their tenderest numbers bring 
One sigh responsive to the string. 
As vainly had her maidens vied 
In skill to deck the princely bride. 
Her locks, in dark brown length arrayed, 
Cathleen of Ulne, 't was thine to braid ; 
Young Eva with meet reverence drew 
On the light foot the silken shoe ; 
While on the ankle's slender round 
Those strings of pearl fair Bertha wound, 
That, bleach'd Lochryan's depths within, 
Seemed dusky still on Edith's skin. 
Yet, empress of this joyful day, 
Edith is sad while all are gay." 




83J ., ' ? * ■■■••' < 



GLENCOE. 

" Such are the scenes, where savage grandeur wakes 
An awful thrill that softens into sighs ; 
Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannock's lakes, 
In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise." 

Lord of the Isles, canto iv. vol. x. p. 136. 



This too memorable scene is situated in the district of 
Lorn, in Argyleshire. The vale is watered by the Coe, 
a very rapid river, the Cona of Ossian, which falls into 
Loch-Leven. 

It is celebrated as having been the birth-place of that 
poet, in whose poems many passages, descriptive of the 
surrounding scenery, will be found. On the south is the 
lofty Malmor, and on the north is the celebrated Con Fron, 
or the Hill of Fingal. The valley is closed by some 
other grotesque mountains, which are frequently covered 
with mist, and seem to shut the inhabitants of this spot 
completely from the world. It would be a happy occur- 
rence, if the strains of this wild and original poet had been 
the sole memorial that confers celebrity on this beautiful 
scene; but the barbarous deed perpetrated here in 1691, 
has rendered it an object to contemplate with mingled 
emotions : the scenery is beautiful beyond description, but in 
surveying it, it is impossible to exclude our historical recol- 



GLENCOE. 

lections. Mr. Laing, in his History of Scotland, has given 
a detailed account of the treacherous proceeding. Dr. 
Macculloch, in his interesting Memoir of the Western 
Highlands, thus describes this spot: — "In Glencoe every- 
thing is wild, and various, and strange; a busy bustling 
scene of romance and wonder; terrific — but terrific from its 
rudeness, and its barrenness, and its spiry rocks, and its 
black precipices, not from sublimity of forms or extent of 
space. In its own character it excels all analogous scenes ; 
and yet there is in it that which art and taste do not love : 
a quaintness of outline; forms unusual in nature, and 
therefore extravagant; when painted, appearing fanciful 
and fictitious rather than true. Such it is also when viewed 
in nature; we rather wonder than admire: and the gloom 
of its lofty and opposing precipices, the powerful effect of 
its deep shadows, the impression produced by its altitude, 
and extent and bulk, are injured by a form of outline 
which attracts the eye as unnatural, and which forces it to 
analyse and reason, instead of allowing it to feel. 

Thus, though Glencoe presents many scenes of sufficient 
variety, its pictures are scarcely pleasing, and they are also 
deficient in grandeur. If the bizarre which it displays 
in nature is somewhat overcome by its magnitude, that 
advantage is lost in the representation; and we dwell on 
what is wrong, unable to balance or overcome it by what is 
right. Nor even in nature does it display much variety, 
though its extent is so considerable. The southern moun- 
tain outline, which is alone visible, although it undergoes 



GLENCOE. 

variations of form as we proceed, is never thoroughly 
altered. We trace the same shapes from the beginning to 
the end, and are almost wearied at length by finding that 
our hopes of promised novelty are disappointed. Thus also 
it diminishes in interest in proceeding from the eastward; 
the most perfect view being found near a bridge at the 
commencement of the descent, and nearly all the scenes 
that follow being depreciated changes of the same. Hence 
it is preferable, if we have a choice, to enter it from Bala- 
hulish, or, what is best, to pass it twice. He who has 
time, however, must be told that all the beauty of Glencoe 
will not be found from the road side. The noble ravine 
which conducts its waters, the deep chasm through which 
they flow, the perpendicular precipices, the varied rocks, 
and the scattered trees wildly dispersed among them, offer 
many scenes of a close character, of great interest and 
much grandeur. But for these we must labour, as they are 
not otherwise to be attained. The change of character, in 
proceeding eastward, is completed as soon as we have sur- 
mounted the ascent, and reached the common head of the 
eastern and western waters. 

In the middle of the valley is a small lake, and from it 
runs the river Cona, celebrated by Ossian. Indeed, no 
place could be more happily calculated than this for forming 
the taste and inspiring the genius of such a poet. 



GOATFELLS OF ARRAN. 

O'er chasms he passed, where fractures wide 
Craved wary eye and ample stride." 

Lord of the Isles, canto iv. vol. x. p. 182. 



The interior of the isle of Arran abounds with beautiful 
Highland scenery. The hills being very rocky and preci- 
pitous, afford some cataracts of great height, though of 
inconsiderable breadth. There is one pass over the river 
Machrai, renowned for the dilemma of a poor woman, who, 
being tempted by the narrowness of the ravine to step 
across, succeeded in making the first movement, but took 
fright when it became necessary to move the other foot, and 
remained in a posture equally ludicrous and dangerous, 
until some chance passenger assisted her to extricate herself. 
It is said that she remained there some hours. 

Goatfield is two thousand eight hundred and forty feet 
above the level of the sea, and abounds with those beautiful 
pebbles, known among jewellers as Scotch topazes. There 
is not a more extensive prospect in Britain than that which 
Goatfield affords. 



CUMRAY. 

" Cumray's isles." 

Lord of the Isles, canto v. vol. x. p. 190. 



The islands of Cumbray More and Cumbray Beg, or 
Great and Little Cumbray, are situated on the coast of 
Ayrshire, in the Frith of Clyde, near the southern part of 
the isle of Bute. The Greater Cumbray is distant about 
two miles from Ayrshire, and three miles from Bute. It is 
separated from the Little Cumbray upon the south, by a 
channel three quarters of a mile broad. The length of 
the island from north-east to south-west is two miles 
and a half, the breadth from east to west about one mile 
and a half. 

The surface contains about two thousand three hundred 
acres, one-third of which is or might be cultivated. With 
a few exceptions the hills rise, with a gentle ascent to the 
centre of the island, where they are elevated nearly four 
hundred feet above the level of the sea. The soil in gene- 
ral is a gravelly loam, and in some places a mixture of 
clay. There are a few enclosures ; and some plantations 
have been lately made by the Earl of Glasgow, who is 
proprietor of the greatest part of the island. Here is a 
commodious dry harbour, where, in spring tides, there is 



CUMRAY. 

water to the height of eleven feet. There is also a safe 
anchorage, sheltered by a rocky islet. There is plenty of 
lime-stone, and an inexhaustible fund of excellent free- 
stone, of which last there is exported to the value of two 
hundred pounds per annum. There are two rocks on 
each side of the island, which have joints and seams 
like the basaltic rocks of Staffa, but are not so regu- 
larly columnar. They have the same chemical properties, 
and may be estimated as the production of volcanic fusion 
and eruption. 

Little Cumbray is about a mile in length, and half a mile 
in breadth. The strata of rocks are horizontal, and as they 
recede from the shore they rise above each other like stairs. 
There are several caves in the island, an old fortress, 
and the ruins of a very ancient chapel, said to have been 
dedicated to St. Vey, who lies interred near it, and which 
was most probably a dependency of the celebrated monas- 
tery of I-Colm-Kill. The island abounds with rabbits. 
Upon the highest part of the island a light-house was 
erected in the year 1750; but as, ftom its elevated situation, 
the light was liable to be obscured in fogs, another, with a 
reflector, was lately erected upon a lower station. The 
whole island belongs to the Earl of Eglintoun, who 
resided here at the period when Cromwell nearly de- 
stroyed the Castle of Ardrossan, and who must have 
viewed the melancholy havoc of one of the ornaments 
of a property, from which he derives one of his titles, with 
deep regret. 



CUMBRAY. 

It is said that the Greater Cumbray once possessed a 
church dedicated to St. Columba, but no traces remain ; to 
all those who visit it, even though not pretending- to geo- 
logy, the huge trap vein which courses the island like a 
wall, and with a very picturesque effect, will be found the 
most striking object on the island. 

Cambray (Cumbray) is said to be derived from the 
Gaelic, implying a place of shelter or refuge : distant from 
the Isle of Bute four miles, and separated from the Little 
Cumbray by a strait of three-quarters of a mile. With few 
exceptions the hills rise with a gentle ascent. The prospect 
from every point of view is delightful, particularly from 
the south, where the Little Cumbray, and the Point of 
Pent-cross, with their ancient castles, bound it by sea. 
The Frith, too, often displays the beautiful scenery of 
the extensive navigation of the west; while that noble 
beacon, Ailsa, rises towards the horizon; and to the north, 
Goatfield in Arran, seems to support the clouds on its 
brow. 

Besides the views of Bute and Arran, and of the Clyde 
scenery in general which may be obtained here, there 
is a wild and strange character about the high part of 
the island itself, which is very pleasing. On the Ayr- 
shire side there is a distinct flat tract, and of an entirely 
different character, containing some farms, but more re- 
markable for a castle, consisting of a square tower, in 
good preservation, perched on the very border of the sea. 
The exact correspondence of this with that of Pent- 



CUMBRAY. 

cross on the opposite side, gives additional effect to both, 
as they look like the joint guardians, the Sestos and Abydos 
of the Strait. 

Both these castles have the reputation of having been 
royal palaces or residences. Whatever kings of Scotland 
resided in them, must have been very indifferent to accom- 
modation, as they would now be scarcely more than houses 
for an ordinary farmer. 







.':3V m 






THE BIER OF DE ARGENTINE. 

" Bid Ninian's convent light their shrine, 
For late- wake of De Argentine ; 
O'er better knight on death-bier laid, 
Torch never gleamed, nor mass was said." 

Lord of the Isles, canto vi. vol. x. p. 265. 



The Church of St. Ninian's, in which the funeral ceremony 
of Sir Giles de Argentine was performed after the battle 
of Bannoekburn, is now entirely destroyed, with the ex- 
ception of the ancient tower, which still remains at a little 
distance from the modern church, about a mile from the 
stream whence the field of battle was named. Having been 
used as a powder magazine by the Highland army, the 
edifice was blown up, either by accident or design, imme- 
diately after the battle of Falkirk, in the year 1746, when 
an attempt had been made to reduce the town of Stirling. 

At the period when St. Ninian's Church was originally 
founded, a new style of architecture had been recently 
introduced ; a style which has excited the admiration of all 
succeeding ages. The semicircular arches and massive 
columns of the Anglo-Normans were entirely laid aside, 
and slender shafts, insulated or clustered, supported lancet 
arches sharply pointed, a prevailing feature in that particular 



THE BIER OF DE ARGENTINE. 

manner of building which has been called Saracenic, and 
has also been supposed to derive its origin from the holy 
groves or thickets of the ancient Celtic nations. 

Arches when so constructed are found to present an 
unrivalled perspective, distinguished by the greatest sim- 
plicity and elegance, and which never fails to convey the 
most exalted impressions of grandeur and sublimity. 

To the enrichments of architecture in this golden age of 
the pointed style, were superadded the embellishments of 
heraldry, and sculptured emblazoned shields were then first 
admitted amongst the gorgeous ornaments of the choir. 
The walls also of this part of the church were stained with 
a thousand beautiful rays, harmoniously blended in the 
reflection of painted glass, which then filled the mullioned 
windows and their ramified tracery. 

On all festivals of high solemnity, the choir, destined 
more particularly to the service of religion, was usually 
lined with richly embroidered tapestry, representing the 
most captivating subjects, selected from a series of events 
in the legendary life and miracles of the patron saint. The 
single figures or groups were raised amidst fanciful designs 
of interlaced foliage, with gold and silver, on hangings of 
woollen or silk. 

" Motion and life did every part inspire, 
Bold was the work, and proved the master's fire." 

These subjects were regarded with the most fervent devotion 
in an age when religious zeal animated every order of 



THE BIER OF DE ARGENTINE. 

persons, and exerted its full influence on the embellishment 
of ecclesiastical architecture. 

Besides the large slabs of marble filled with intagliated 
brass, disposed in forms of robed priests under canopies, or 
knights in complete armour, which covered the floor, 
painted tiles of variegated patterns composed the beautiful 
and highly ornamental pavement of the altar in all the most 
distinguished buildings of this early period. These vitrified 
tiles formed, when connected and arranged, a curious and 
diversified display of regular designs, exhibiting sometimes 
scriptural sentences, but not unfrequently the arms of 
founders and contributors to the convent : in the splendid 
effect produced, they were evidently intended to vie with 
the elegant Mosaic productions of Italy, for which Taffi, 
Gaddi, and Giotto of Florence, were then so celebrated.* 

No event is perhaps recorded by the Scottish historians 
with a greater degree of national pride than the memorable 
battle fought on the 24th of June, 1314, between the 
English and Scots army on the fields of Bannockburn, three 
miles south of Stirling. The poet dwells with admiration 
on the heroism displayed in the eventful life of the valiant 
Bruce, the competitor of Baliol for the crown: many 
combats were gallantly sustained by the Scots, though 
unattended with success, before the decisive battle of Ban- 
nockburn, which effectually disappointed the hopes of 

* The picture over the great door of St. Peter's, at Rome, called the 
Navicula di Giotto, is said to be a more modern work, copied from a 
former one of that artist. 



THE BIER OF DE ARGENTINE. 

Edward of Carnarvon. The King of England's army may 
be described in the words of a contemporary poet, although 
written upon another occasion, in which that prince was 
successful. " They were habited not only in coats and 
surcoats, but were mounted on powerful and costly chargers ; 
and that they might not be taken by surprise they were 
well and securely armed. There were many rich caparisons 
embroidered on silks and satins ; many a beautiful penon 
fixed to a lance, and many a banner displayed. Afar off 
was heard the neighing of horses; hills and valleys were 
every where covered with sumpter-horses and wagons with 
provisions, and sacks of tents and pavilions. As the days 
were long and fine, they proceeded by easy journeys."* 

King Edward proceeded from the city of Edinburgh, and 
halted at Falkirk, on the river Carron ; in the afternoon of 
the following day he pitched his tent nearly opposite to the 
camp of Bruce, who under the royal banner awaited his 
coming. 

By day-break the English army, having the superiority 
in point of numbers, advanced in divisions to the very brink 
of the Burn, the centre being led on by the King in person, 
and the wings, consisting chiefly of cavalry, commanded by 
the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford. The battle raged 
with fury, and in the very midst an appearance of reinforce- 
ment on the Scottish side is said to have struck a panic into 

* Walter of Exeter, author of an heraldic poem descriptive of the siege 
of Carlaverock Castle on the Nith, in June, 1300, and at which Edward, 
then Prince of Wales, was present. 



THE BIER OF DE ARGENTINE. 

the English troops, who fearing- their retreat might be cut 
off, fled in all directions : so great and so general was the 
slaughter on both sides, that historians are at a loss now to 
estimate it. 

The flower of the English nobility, lay on the field of 
battle, and many were taken prisoners, whose ransoms 
enriched the victorious army. King Edward fled to Dun- 
bar, on the coast, and thence went by sea to Berwick 
upon Tweed. 

Sir Giles De Argentine, who in the beginning of the 
battle had exposed himself with unwary forwardness, per- 
ceiving the king in danger, it is said, advised him to retire, 
but adding that "he himself was not used to flight," 
returned immediately to the engagement, where he was 
slain together with numerous other gallant English knights. 

A Leonine couplet on his lamented fall at the battle of 
Bannockburn has been extolled by Lord Hailes, as abound- 
ing in sentiment.* — 

" Nobilis Argentem, pugil inclyto dulcis Egidi 
Vix scieram mentem cum te succumbere vidi."-j- 

* So sure was King Edward of success, that he brought with him in 
his train, a Carmelite friar, of the name of William Baston, one of the 
best poets of his age, that he might witness and celebrate the victory. 
The poet was taken prisoner, and obtained his liberty on condition of 
composing a poem in honour of the victorious Scots. This poem in 
Latin, of which the above is an extract, is still extant, and is considered 
a literary curiosity. 

f " Fair flower of Chivalry, brave Argentine, 

Twas as my own death-blow to witness thine." 



THE BIER OF DE ARGENTINE. 

This celebrated flower of chivalry, was the son of Lord 
Chancellor Argentine, whose family derived their name 
from Argenton in France, and obtained the manor of 
Wymondley in Hertfordshire, by a marriage with the 
heiress of Fitz-Tees. This manor was held of the king 
by grand sergeantry; its possessor performing the service 
of presenting the king with the first cup he drank at the 
coronation feast, receiving the cup of silver ungilt for his 
fee. 

In allusion to his office of chief cupbearer to the king, 
Sir Giles De Argentine bore three silver cups on his shield. 
The Lord High Chamberlain at the same chivalric period, 
adopted the long necked silver bottle, then in use, as his 
badge of office. Menial services of this nature were closely 
connected with feudal dignities, and have been held by 
families of the highest rank and noblest descent. 

The armour usually worn in the reign of Edward the 
Second, was the beautiful interlaced chain-mail, of Asiatic 
origin, which was used for horses as well as men. Over 
this was worn the caparison, which had on it the armorial 
bearings of the rider. Knights so arrayed, are constantly 
found represented on contemporary seals — 

" With haubergeons and cervelieres, 
Gauntlets, tags, and gorgets." 

It is recorded, that in the battle of Bannockburn, Gilbert 
Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester, would not have been 
killed, but he incautiously went into the field without his 



V 

THE BIER OF DE ARGENTINE. 

emblazoned surcoat, and was not recognized ; or the Scots 
would gladly have spared his life, had he been known, in 
the hope of a good ransom. This distinguishing part of 
the knight's dress was clasped by a military girdle, highly 
ornamented with silver and precious stones. The sword 
was suspended at the left hip by a belt, which passed over 
the right shoulder, and its scabbard was ornamented with 
several little shields of arms ; the dagger depended on the 
right side, attached to the sword belt by a small strap. 

Considerable improvements had recently been made in 
defensive armour, in comparison with that previously worn ; 
the great advantages of compactness and pliability afforded 
by the invention of chain-mail, rendered its use, at this 
period, almost universal. Banners of arms were carried, 
wherever those to whom they belonged, and their followers 
were engaged. Penons also, and its dimunitive pencille, or 
penoncille, a long narrow flag, on which the cognizance of 
the knight was emblazoned, was fixed on the end of a lance, 
while the great standard set before the king's pavilion, or 
tent, and not borne in battle, was two yards in length. 

" With all their banners bravely spread, 
And all their armour flashing high ; 
Saint George might waken from the dead, 
To see fair England's standards fly." 

The respect paid to the body of De Argentine, was a 
tribute to his superior valour; and his bier ornamented with 
his own caparisons, was placed by the victors before the 
high altar or shrine of St. Ninian, with all the state belong- 
ing to a person of his degree. 



METELILL. 

Harold the Dauntless, vol. xi. p. 169* 



And nought of fraud, or ire, or ill, 
Was known to gentle Metelill ; 

A simple maiden she. 
The spells in dimpled smile that lie, 
And a downcast look, and the darts that fly 
With the side-long glance of a hazel eye, 

Were her arms and witchery. 
So young, so simple was she yet, 
She scarce could childhood's joys forget ; 
And still she loved, in secret set 

Beneath the greenwood tree^ 
To plait the rushy coronet, 
And braid with flowers her locks of jet, 

As when in infancy." 




turl H11 Fleel 



ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

Flagons, and ewers, and standing cups, were all 

Of planish'd gold, or silver nothing clear, 

With throne begilt, and canopy of pall 

And tapestry clothed the walls, with fragments sear, 

Frail as the spider's mesh did that rich woof appear." 

Harold the Dauntless, canto vi. vol. xi. p. 238. 



The costume of a scene, if the expression may be allowed, 
is of infinitely more importance than painters, in general, 
are willing to admit. Almost every historical picture 
receives its embellishment from the playful invention of the 
artist, who is much too fearful of incurring the charge of 
"pedantry or of servile imitation. 

There is an anecdote related of Rubens, by which it 
appears that that great painter considered the delineation of 
the subordinate parts of the greatest consequence to the 
effect of the picture. Rubens, on being required to take 
under his instruction a youth of promise, the gentleman 
who recommended him, in order to induce the painter the 
more readily to accept him for a pupil, said he was a young 
man of great talent, and already capable of assisting him in 
his back grounds. Rubens, smiling at his simplicity, told 



ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

his friend that if he was capable of that, the youth stood in 
no need of his instructions ; for the regulation and manage- 
ment of the back ground required the most comprehensive 
knowledge of the art of painting. 

The subject of the annexed engraving is calculated to 
please from its novelty; although most of the articles of 
ancient furniture present interesting objects of curiosity, 
these are rarely or never introduced as subordinate parts, 
even, of a picture. Furniture of this early period is yet 
abundant; but with the almost solitary exception of Hard- 
wick Hall in Derbyshire, the magnificent interiors of the 
Tudor period have never been made the painter's study. A 
careful attention to such aids would stamp life, character, 
and expression on the work of the artist, as if Nature herself 
had done it.* 

In this series of illustrations, the painter's attention has 
been excited to correctness of detail by the extreme fidelity 
of the author. Sir Walter Scott was an antiquary as well 
as a poet, and honoured the Royal Academy by accepting 
the office of Antiquary to that body. The spirit of minute 
detail incident to the study of antiquity, after passing 
through the medium of his elegant mind, came with a 
freshness over his readers scarcely to be accounted for : it 

* Two or three very splendid compositions for interiors, of this precise 
period, were painted by Mr. Pugin, as scenes for the interesting ballet of 
Kenilworth, at the King's Theatre, which was founded upon one of Sir 
Walter Scott's most popular novels. These scenes were so striking 
from their fidelity and magnificence, that they will not fail to be 
remembered. 



ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

was portrayed with a degree of energy that shewed touches 
of a learned master in the art. Sir Walter Scott's first 
performances were evidently formed upon the model of the 
earliest romantic poems exhibited in our language. Chaucer, 
reflecting the manners of the times in which he wrotej is 
exceedingly minute in his description of 

" The galleries right wele ywrought, 
As for dauncing and otherwise disporte." 

Harrison, the historian of the reign of Elizabeth, merely 
alludes to the general magnificence then to be found in the 
larger mansions. " Certes," he says " in noblemen's houses 
it is not rare to see abundance of Arras, rich hangings of 
tapestrie, silver vessell, and so much other plate as may 
furnish sundrie cupbords, to the sum ofttimes of a thousand, 
or two thousand, pounds at the least ; whereby the value of 
this, and their other stuffe, dooth growe to be almost ines- 
timable." It is well known that both Rafaello and Giulio 
Romano were engaged in painting cartoons to be wrought 
into tapestry, and that the princes of Europe were most 
ambitious of such splendid decoration of their state apart- 
ments. The enumeration of the tapestries procured by 
Francis I. for his palaces would exceed belief, both with 
respect to quality and value, was it not derived from 
undoubted authority. To give some idea of the quantity, 
Felibien says that the story of Psyche by Rafaello consisted 
of twenty-six pieces, and one hundred and six yards. Some 




ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

singularly rich tapestry was brought into England by 
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, to ornament the noble 
mansion which he had recently built at his manor of Grims- 
thorp in Lincolnshire. It was so valuable as to form part 
of the dower of his royal bride, Mary Queen of France, 
the younger sister of King Henry VIII. This splendid 
decoration soon excited a similar taste in that sovereign and 
his favourite, Cardinal Wolsey. The several palaces, 
according to the inventories now preserved in the British 
Museum, were furnished with a profusion scarcely credible, 
both as to the number and the cost of the pieces, on multi- 
farious subjects, wrought with silk and threads of gold and 
silver. In the fabrication of these gorgeous hangings the 
most costly materials were used, as from the wardrobe 
accounts of both the king and the cardinal is sufficiently 
apparent.* 

The tapestry was loosely hung on projecting frames by 
tenterhooks against the walls (which were sometimes not 
even plastered), covering the whole surface from the floor 
to the ceiling, and was, like most other furniture, removable 
from one residence of its owner to another. A servant of 
the house, appointed for the purpose, and called " the 
upholder," superintended these matters. There are yet in 
the king's household six yeomen hangers, whose duty is to 
attend the king in all his progresses or removals, with the 
hangings, tents, &c. 

* See also very ample accounts in Dallaway's Discourses on Archi- 
tecture ; a work abounding with information on the subject. 



ANCIENT FURNITURE, 

The splendid hangings at St. James's Palace, described 
by the Sieur de la Serre, in his account of the visit of 
Mary de Medicis to Queen Henrietta Maria, were from the 
looms at Mortlake, established in the reign of James I. by 
Sir Francis Crane ; some few specimens are yet remaining 
in the palace, but the best were purchased, with others 
belonging to Hampton Court and Whitehall, by Oliver 
Cromwell, at the sale of King Charles's effects. One set 
of hangings, relating to the story of Abraham, was valued 
in the inventory at eight thousand two hundred and sixty 
pounds ; and another, in two parts, representing the history 
of Julius Csesar, was appraised at five thousand and nine- 
teen pounds. 

Cabinets of massive proportions, carved in oak, ebony, 
walnut, and other woods inlaid, were conspicuous objects in 
these apartments. The ceilings were groined with painted 
ribs; and superbly wrought mouldings and ornaments, height- 
ened by gilding, appeared on the richly carved frieze; 
while the glowing tints of stained glass, admitted through 
lofty mullioned windows, gave full effect to these splendid 
chambers.* 



* The large bay or oriel window was a favourite resort of the ladies, 
Bianca, in Middleton's play of "Woman beware of Women," says, 

" Methinks this house stands nothing to my mind, 
I 'd have some pleasant lodging i' th' High-street, sir; 
Or if 't were near the court, sir, that were much better ; 
'T is a sweet recreation for a gentlewoman 
To stand in a bay window, and see gallants." 



ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

In King Henry the Eighth's temporary banqueting 
room at Greenwich, " the candlestykes were of antyke 
worke, which bare little torchetts of white waxe; these 
candlestykes were polished lyke ambre." They are also 
mentioned as being of gold, silver, and silver gilt, the forms 
various and fanciful. At Wolsey's celebrated feast were two 
great candlesticks of silver gilt, most curiously wrought, 
the workmanship whereof, with the silver, cost three hun- 
dred marks, and lights of wax burning upon the same. 
To give more light, plates were hung on the walls, of 
silver gilt, with lights burning in them ; and on this occasion, 
every chamber was furnished with a silver candlestick or 
two, with both white and yellow lights of their sizes of wax. 

Amongst the numerous, costly, and magnificent articles 
for the table, wrought in silver, gold, and other precious 
materials, were chargers, dishes, bowls, &c, cups of gold, 
of gold and sapphire, of beryl, garnished with gold, gold 
enamelled with images; and others enamelled with arms, 
of silver gilt, silver parcel gilt, silver enamelled, gold set 
with rubies and other jewels frequently occur; nor were 
they less various in their fashions and workmanship. China 
dishes may be added to those of silver and pewter. Venice 
banqueting dishes are frequently mentioned, and described 
as being of fine painted earth, brought hither from Venice, 
but of oriental manufacture. In the reign of Elizabeth, 
several Spanish carracks were taken, partly laden with 
Chinaware of porcelain. 

Coifers and chests were the general repositories for 



ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

articles of every kind, writings and apparel were kept 
within them. Many of these chests were beautifully 
ornamented with carving and other sumptuous enrichments. 
Cypress wood was selected for its rare properties of neither 
rotting nor becoming worm-eaten. The ivory coffers were 
small, and either carved or engraved in devices, with silver 
or gilt locks and ornaments, and were used for keeping 
jewels and other valuables. Small coffers of silver are also 
mentioned, and robe chests of scented wood. Pictures in 
considerable number adorned the houses of the nobility, 
and those of value had curtains drawn before them. Shaks- 
peare in many instances notices the practice and its useful- 
ness. Holbien, who was one of the king's painters, had a 
salary of thirty pounds a year. 

In the time of Henry VIII., John Winchcombe was the 
greatest clothier in England, and is better known from 
the place of his residence as Jack of Newbury. It is said 
that the king, together with his queen, Katherine of Arra- 
gon, and many of the nobility were splendidly entertained 
at his house, in the early part of his reign. It appears* 
that " In a faire large parlour, which was wainscotted round 
about, Jacke of Newberry had fifteene faire pictures hang- 
ing, which were covered with curtains of greene silke, 
frienged with gold, which he would often shew to his 
friends." The most valuable pictures are still so preserved 
in the galleries of our time.f 

* Delaney's "Pleasant History of Jacke of Newberry." 

f Hunt's Tudor Architecture, vide pages 107, 118, 136, and 148. 



ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

Needlework seems to have been the great occupation 
of the ladies. Queen Elizabeth was eminent both for her 
skill and industry as a needlewoman. The various kinds 
of needlework practised by our indefatigable grandmothers, 
says Mr. Douce, if enumerated would astonish even the 
most industrious of our modern ladies. Many curious 
books of patterns for all sorts of needlework were published, 
some of which, adds that gentleman, are worth pointing out 
to the curious. Amongst others he mentions, " The 
Needle's Excellency, a newe booke wherein are divers 
admirable workes wrought with the needle newly invented, 
and cut in copper, for the pleasure and profit of the Indus- 
trious." 

Before the art of carpet weaving was known in this 
country, it was the fashion for ladies to work carpets with 
the needle. George Lord Darcy, in the year 1548, be- 
queathed to his daughter, Agnes Fairfax, his " best wrought 
silk carpet, bordered with crimson velvet, which she made." 
Narrow carpets of tapestry, or woollen cloths were partially 
applied to the floors of rooms of ceremony or state. 

In most apartments the seats are described as " Flemish 
chairs," "scrolled chairs," and "turned chairs," wrought in 
ebony, walnut, cherry-tree, &c, with high backs, either 
stuffed in one long upright panel, or filled with wicker- 
work; the seats also stuffed and covered with costly kinds of 
materials, as various as their shapes. To these may be 
added low armed chairs, tastefully turned, and carved in 
ebony, enriched with ivory knobs and inlayings, chiefly of 



ANCIENT FURNITURE. 

Italian or Flemish manufacture. But the ordinary and 
by far the most numerous kind of seats were stools, of 
great variety of form and fashion. The very handsome 
ebony chairs from Esher Palace, and which formerly 
belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, were amongst the curious 
furniture collected by Mr. Beckford at Fonthill Abbey. 
Others of the same interesting period are constantly pre- 
served as articles of virtu. 



WATERLOO. 

Then Wellington ! thy piercing eye, 
This crisis caught of destiny." 

Field of Waterloo, vol. xi. p. 274, 



The account of this celebrated movement is thus detailed 
by one of the heroes of this memorable day. " The Duke 
now ordered the whole line to move forward: nothing could 
be more beautiful. The sun, which had hitherto been 
veiled, at this instant shed upon us his departing rays, as if 
to smile upon the efforts we were making, and bless them 
with success. As we proceeded in line down the slope, the 
regiments on the high ground on our flanks were formed 
into hollow squares, in which manner they accompanied us, 
in order to protect us from cavalry. The blow was now 
struck; the victory was complete; and the enemy fled in 
every direction." 

No persuasion or authority could prevail upon the French 
troops to stand the shock of the bayonet. The imperial 
guards, in particular, hardly stood till the British were 
within thirty yards of them, although a French writer has 
put into their mouths the magnanimous sentiment, " The 
guards never yield — they die." 



WATERLOO. 

The artist, it will be generally allowed, has most happily 
portrayed the moment alluded to in this tremendous conflict. 

" Millions of tongues record thee, and anew 
Their childrens' lips shall echo them, and say- 
Here, where the sword united nations drew, 
Our countrymen were warring on that day ! 
And this is much, and all which will not pass away." 



LONDON: 

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